A/N: Yes, yes; without waiting for reviews I already begin another chapter. It'll be BIGGER. LONGER. UNCUT. Like the South Park movie. Heh.
Enjoy the show!
Disclaimer: I don't own Project .hack. If I did, then The World would already be a massive multiplayer online RPG with the visor thingies, and I'd be the happiest Heavy Blade system administrator alive... Alas, it is not so.
^*^
Chapter 1: Waiting for Lonesome Memories
You tell me nothing's wrong
Seems like I've been gone oh-so-long
Nothing seems to have changed
Yet, the familiar things seem all so strange
I'm OK, You're OK - Mxpx
^*^
Light and splotches of color--similar to the spots that lined one's vision after taking a photograph--continued to explode in Hikaru's eyes; his sore eyes swam forcedly around the small hospital room, somberly absorbing his surroundings. His brain pounded as if it was being drilled into and squashed by the recesses of his skull. White walls...old painting...chair...desk...jar...papers. A tube attached to a mask--a wire sprouting out of the inside of the face mask, sliding down his throat and gently spilling some tasteless food article into his throat. Spilt coffee interrupted the white-and-gray ensemble the room had erected.
Spilt coffee?
Suddenly, the memories of a mere few seconds ago flooded Hikaru's mind. He recalled hoarsely inquiring about the date, managing to squeeze the words past an unused throat. Awake... Despite the lack of acquaintance with his own name, Mitsurugi Hikaru had enough "common" sense to know that what he was feeling was pretty damn close to a hangover. He made a mental note to never become an alcoholic.
When did I go to sleep?
The sun began to peek through the clean linen curtains; with a chivalrous attempt to shield his sensitive eyes from any more light, Hikaru rolled over and off the bed with a dull thud. For a moment, his sides went numb--then his body flashed with pain from the impact. Well, that was certainly delayed, Hikaru thought dully, lying still for a few moments to regroup himself. The feeding tube had slipped off and out.
It was then the doctor burst in the door; its hinges squealed in protest. Not well oiled, the diplomatic voice in Hikaru's head spoke. Why do I notice all the small things...? It was then his ears stung with the collision of the door against the wall and the screech of its latches. A whimpering sound manifested in his closed throat, and he placed one hand on the side of the bed, attempting to use it as a sort of cane to hoist himself upward. Still a very brave thing to do, yet he found that his knees threatened to buckle beneath them if he wasn't careful. Divided use of arm strength and holding onto the bed would do the trick--
"Hikaru! Please, don't try to stand up yet!" An old man's voice hovered warily above his position on the floor. A pruned arm slings itself around Hikaru's waist, gently lifting the boy up like a rag doll.
He was obviously displeased by this manner of treatment. He couldn't bring himself to say anything...felt too weak. The feeling was instantly despised, and Hikaru wrenched his lanky arms out of the man's grasp. "I--"
Hikaru opened his mouth slightly, but no sound came out except for an odd gurgle. He found himself gagging over something viscous and sticky; phlegm that had neatly coated his esophagus and vocal cords splattered out onto the bed sheets, a sickly mixture of chartreuse and pearl along with a bit of blood.
With another audacious attempt to swallow and a bit more hacking, he was surprised to find his throat was mind-numbingly parched.
"I'll get him some water," the nurse suddenly said, bounding out of the room in her tight white miniskirt and allowing the bright orange-red curls to bounce along behind her. For a fleeting moment, Hikaru was grateful. That moment passed as the doctor knelt before him, pressing the back of his hand to his forehead, then his neck...
"You're warm," Doctor Yadate murmured in his gruff, low tone--perhaps a phrase recited more to himself then the child before him. "Excessively dehydrated; damn Shrapner, abandoning a patient! Even a comatose one!" Yadate swore to himself under his breath, ensuring that Hikaru heard none of his vehement accusations. I already know them all. Hikaru's gaze became rather heavy-lidded and narrow, as if unimpressed by the doctor. "Where's that wretched nurse? Gods, you need a shower too or something; I'd almost forgotten you were here...goodness me..."
Right on cue, the bright-haired nurse stalked in, thrusting a tall glass of water into Hikaru's hands. "Drink up, sweetie, drink up."
Hikaru could only happily oblige, splashing water lightly onto his grimly-set lips and proceeding to pour the rest of it into his mouth. The cool liquid obliterated the arid sensation in his mouth, and it wasn't until the very last drop had been absorbed had Hikaru allowed himself to breathe heavily.
"Oh my goodness, he's--...ahem. Hello, Mitsurugi Hikaru. Do you know where you are?"
Hikaru swallowed a few more times experimentally. There was a pause, and with a bit of a struggle he managed to utter: "...Y-yes..." The doctor said nothing; the silence that ascended prompted Hikaru to prove what he knew. "...A hospital." Yet before the doctor could acknowledge this with praise, the boy continued, eyes slit in dislike. "...Why am I in the hospital?"
Only silence followed.
"...Answer me..."
"...Mr. Mitsurugi, you've been...comatose. Bed-ridden," the doctor added as an afterthought, as if under the delusion a boy older then 7 didn't know what the word meant, "for the...for the past six months." Hikaru seemed not to have heard until 3 seconds after, when his wine-colored eyes widened. Surprise didn't seem to fit the monotonous, floppy-haired boy very well; his face was etched in stone, a never-ending expression of cynicism. "Your brain wave activity seemed...well...almost stasis. B-but...you were alive, and we've kept you that way after your family brought you here."
Family? Who's... "Who...where," he corrected himself, "is my family?"
Doctor Yadate did not reply; his eyes closed as if tired and in pain, and his gnarled hand swallowed Hikaru's smaller and scarred palm. Then, Yadate stood, shaking his head. Unfortunately, Hikaru could sense he wasn't about to get an answer. "They came here six months ago soon after an ambulance took you to this room. They said you had collapsed playing a video game--the MMORPG called The World."
The World!
Images flashed in his mind, attempting to recollect themselves beneath a door that sealed himself off from his memories. A white-haired, violet-eyed boy in tan and gray robes; a spacious vortex of swirling gray and hallucinatory-type colors...daggers, or blades attached to his forearms and wrists... A woman in teal and light blue with gold trimmings, with emerald-green eyes... she was pretty--beautiful, even... But she seemed to be...mocking him...
"And I had killed her," Hikaru said suddenly, lost in reverie.
The old man jolted to attention. "What did you say?" he asked, adjusting his wire-frame glasses that seemed to be able to snap in two any second then.
"N-nothing...I..." Hikaru pressed his clammy palms to his forehead, rushing aside thinned strands of dark green. "Doc, I don't know how to tell you this..." His cold, unforgiving eyes slid shut, squinting horribly as if to try and force a memory. A pause. "...Who the hell am I?"
The doctor's eyes bulged out of their sockets in mutinous trepidation. In a very similar fashion to the way the nurse had panicked--knocking over the helpless mug of coffee in her alarm--Doctor Yadate stumbled backwards, hitting his tailbone on the desk he had been using as a surface for his medical scribbles.
"What...?"
"You...you mean you don't know, Hikaru?" Yadate said softly, as opposed to the booming hysterics Hikaru expected him to belt out with his reaction.
"I know my name at least, thanks to that nurse..." the boy mumbled, fixing his gaze on the floor. "But other then that, all I'm drawing up is a blank...so...I'd like to see my...family, please..."
The doctor hesitated for a moment.
"...You can see them in a few days," he said calmly. His astonishment had died down; the only thing left in its wake were his ragged, forced breaths and quivering hands lined with jutting veins. "In the meantime, we will," with a heavy heart, he paused and then continued, "get some...paperwork ready." Quickly, Yadate opened a drawer and fished around in it for a while; finding nothing of interest there, he turned. "There's a television--" he pointed to it "--and the remote is on the stand next to you. You might have to stay for a bit, but that's no problem--" Doctor Yadate strode out of the room hastily, leaving no room for protest.
...A few days... Hikaru mulled over the subject for a while. Slowly, he slid off the hospital bed. Placing one hand on the linen comforter, far away from the olive-shaded blot on the sheets, the boy limped towards the massive side window. He placed one hand on the curtains, mind blank and blood-red eyes void; he cringed at the slight light showering into the slit the two curtains created.
Yet bravely, he frowned and yanked them open. A flash--surprisingly, the sun was easy to adjust to, even after it caused his eyes to water after being exposed to the darkness painted on the back of his eyelids for so long.
The sky was clear. Not a single cloud for perhaps many, many kilometers...
Sky. Sora.
An explosion of some sort happened in his brain, and for the time being, all went black.