Disclaimer: I do not own .hack or any of the characters therein; etc.
Everyone is changing;
There's no one left that's real
So make up your own ending, and let me know just how you feel
'Cause I am lost without you,
I cannot live at all
My whole world surrounds you;
I stumble, and then I crawl
Blurry - Puddle of Mudd
Online relationships.
Mimiru dismissed the idea again and again. A screenshot of Tsukasa, Subaru, and herself sat neatly in a frame at the side of her flat-screen monitor; the glass was taped, as if the photograph had been dropped...punched...brutally smashed by a hammer. The latter, of course, was implausible, but the damage was, in the grand scheme of things, the same.
Particularly on the left, where a blue-clad angel had wrapped her arms lovingly around the Wavemaster's neck in a vice like grip, cracks streamed out like crystalline serpents from an infested ravine. Mimiru liked to call it the typical teenage "express anger on something inanimate" syndrome. (She could never exact whatever vengeance she could cook up in the more danger-prone recesses of her mind on Subaru--Mimiru was not that kind of person.)
The Heavy Blade truly wasn't. Of all the things she was--scrawny, boisterous, friendly (nonetheless)--that list did not entail "aggressive" or "revenge-seeking". And Subaru was Tsukasa's Subaru; that was that.
And she had been reduced to allowing her clouded eyes linger on the pair sitting beneath a tree in the snow.
The field was a typical tundra wasteland: footprints or digitized blood marring the sheet like surface of the land, like sprinkles on an ice cream cone; an occasional stone ruin, each intricately-carved block either forming an inverted "U" structure or lying immobile and imbedded in the snow. Lucky for Mimiru, the pair had not strayed far from the spawning point, and so Mimiru lay in wait, ignoring the frigid stone boring into her back. She was atop the dungeon entrance, as the entirety of the cave was underground, and she often found herself wondering why the torches perched on either end of the mouth had never once gone out.
(Why question the physics of a game?)
Only Subaru could make him--or, more accurately, her--laugh out of jovialness rather then the usual mocking chortle that the Heavy Blade was presented with ease. She wasn't even that funny, per se.
The Heavy Blade's tanned skin provided a sharp contrast to the black-and-white area, and so Mimiru was forced to remain hidden behind the pylons of the fortress roof. She would stalk the couple, but she could never bring herself to look at them, as it would summon a maelstrom of negative emotion.
Hate. (Circling thoughts. To travel in a circle is to tread the same path for as long as you wish, or as long as time allows.)
Curiosity and inquisitiveness--nature is as nature does, and Mimiru scrambled around to toss a glance behind her, bracing herself for whatever she might see. They were laughing again; the angelic Heavy Axewoman had curled up to him as a kitten would linger in the clutches of its owner. Mimiru felt ill at ease again; tears pricked at her eyes, but the arctic conditions had--
"Playing a little spy game, now, are we?" A perplexed but innocently unaware voice forced Mimiru to clamp her teeth onto her tongue in order not to scream. That action in itself was painful, and without looking, her left hand shot out blindly to pull down at the leg of the person who had so rudely interrupted her antics. "Whoop!" The source of the voice hunkered onto the floor, and Mimiru was instantly alerted as to her discoverer's identity.
"Shut up!"
Mimiru instantly regretted it, as where there is oppression, there is resistance, and Sora exemplified that rule.
"Mimiru-chan," he crooned noisily, placing an extra emphasis on her name with an evil smile. "Who're you watching waaay down there?" His dark clothes and his bloody eyes ruined Mimiru's idea of camouflage--as in, pissed on it and kicked dirt on it simultaneously. His lanky body tilted forward so his half-slit eyes could enrapture themselves in whatever she had been looking at--
Colorful words accentuated her frustration, and with a strained cry, one steel-booted foot kicked itself at the back of his knee.
There was a reason Sora had selected Twin Blades as his specified class. These fighters, usually of the skinny variety, were gifted with grace that belonged wholly to a feline; Sora's languid personality fitted that of a jungle cat, at one minute dozing the nights and days away in the limbs of a tree. The next minute would be spent bounding around as if on steroids.
Unfortunately, this was not one of the times Sora would be able to utilize his God-given nimbleness. However, Mimiru was able to discern that the snow enveloping the field was about six feet deep...
The couple beneath the tree were both alerted to the sound; apparently wishing for solitude, no matter how unapparent it may be, they gated out at the same time. Mimiru sighed, wondering if they had seen her--well, that wouldn't matter. Tsukasa didn't even know she existed, after all!
The Heavy Blade steadied herself atop a pylon, and bounded off the top; accomplishing a hasty midair somersault, she landed on the snowy surface. Her crystalline eyes peered anxiously at the hole in the powder--well, the hole showed no signs of anyone clambering out of it. Perhaps he was recuperating--either from the nasty bruise that would form on his leg or from the fact that he was just kicked off a building. Mimiru contemplated gating out immediately, just to avoid some inevitable trouble.
Basically instantaneously, a flowers-and-sunshiny Twin Blade popped up about four inches from her face. "Tsk tsk, Mimiru-chan," he chided, wagging his index finger playfully. (His hands were dangerously close to her face; she hoped that the katars wouldn't go shooting out anytime soon.) "Spying on Tsukasa-kun and ickle Subaru."
Mimiru regained her composure and stepped backwards. Then she scoffed indignantly, sneering at the player-killer. "I was not spying!" Her protest was adamant, but admittedly weak in nature.
Sora tapped his chin and stared at the sky. Snowy skies are hardly ever blue, and he quickly made the comparison between it and the girl's leering eyes. "Really?" he said, tone oily.
"Really."
Mimiru's hand itched for the hilt of her gargantuan sword, prepared to make him chopped liver. Sora noticed this as well, and the corners of his thin lips curled sinisterly; his arms folded, and out of either brace shot a katar with a *shink*. There was a very ensnaring exchange of dark and displeased looks--Mimiru--and the coy, almost seductive expression that relayed a challenge--Sora--before Mimiru, slowly but surely, began to extract her blade from its bindings on her back.
"Get out of here," Mimiru said, a hint of threat and an attempt to be imposing in her voice. Sora said nothing, but his eyebrow quirked slightly. The contrasting end of her personality did not like this silence. (Sora knew how to push people's buttons.) "Wipe that stupid look off your face! I--"
"Talk, talk, talk. Talk is cheap, Mimiru-chan," he said smoothly, bowing mockingly. The nickname seemed to irritate her, but he seemed not to notice. Knowing--or not knowing--Sora, he probably did, but probably didn't care long enough to comment. In another fluid motion, he was upright, and in another, he was standing upside-down--the term "handstand" would be slightly more on the mark. He pushed off of his hands, and after an impressive combo of fancy twirls and such in the air, he landed somewhere behind her. Mimiru did not hesitate before spinning around, fists clenched at her sides. He spoke again with a lopsided grin:
"Has the terrific trio been reduced to a dynamic duo?"
Mimiru's breath caught in her throat, and her sneer twisted into a snarl, perhaps more feral than before. "I don't know what you're talking about," she said, tone as bitter as the whistling wind. "Who told you such a stupid thing!?"
Sora plopped down on the snow, ignoring the fact that it splattered messily onto his pants. (Mimiru reflected that it was likely Sora's character, although taller, probably weighed a lot less then hers did. Muscle mass, she decided.) "Well, if you don't know what I'm talking about, then it doesn't really matter, does it?" he asked flatly.
Mimiru glowered, and she too sat down; chills raced up and down her bare legs, but she ignored them. "Like I care," she mumbled--which wasn't quite the ideal response, and it did seem somewhat irrelevant. "And why do you care about Tsukasa or me?" A pause, and then as an afterthought, "Or Subaru, for that matter." Weariness. She was numb from the waist down, and the fact that she wore large sheets of metal on either side of her waist and not on her torso was not helping.
"Simple. I don't." Sora's tone was bright again, as was his smile--which could be recognized as either destructive or delightfully playful. "So, Mimiru-chan..." Mimiru frowned again. "What are--what were you doing here, of all places, where, coincidentally, Subaru and Tsukasa were as well?"
"Oh, not this again," she mumbled hopelessly, plunging one arm into the snow to wrap around her knees. Her other hand traced mindless patterns into the powder. "I wasn't spying on them," she echoed.
"You're an awful liar, my dear. Did ickle Tsukasa-kun make you cry?"
That caught Mimiru's attention. The Heavy Blade lost her recently-regained balance and yanked her arm out of the snow, which shoved her legs backwards, which sent her sprawling against the ground face-up. (Not the most graceful gesture in her life.) She groaned, having landed on something pointed--a small, lonesome rock, which shouldn't quite be in this field--and ignored what hyena-like laughter would follow. But silence followed. "I wasn't crying," she managed, not bothering to sit up again. "I don't cry."
Mimiru blinked and closed her eyes, knowing what would happen if she opened them quickly. Instead, she lifted one eyelid lazily, and as expected, Sora was hunched over her splayed form; fiery crimson eyes inspected her face. "A-ha!" he cried triumphantly. One hand slowly moved towards her face.
"What!? Don't touch me! Your blades are gonna shoot out and--oh my GAWD, get the hell away from me!" After a minute or two of nonsensical wailing that involved several elaborate descriptions of what would happen if a katar was to fly into her head, Mimiru stopped yelling, blinked, and sat up. "Oh. I'm not dead," she stated, somewhat blandly. Her tone beckoned a challenge, one he seemed not to acknowledge.
"Brilliant deduction. I suppose now you're going to tell me the color of the sky in the spring," Sora mumbled, inspecting something on his bare finger. "You were crying," he concluded finally, shaking whatever the object was off his finger.
"I don't cry," she protested to the thick powder, scooping some on her hands and watching the flakes (like dandruff) slip between her slender fingers like sand in an hourglass. "And why would I cry over--over Subaru and Tsukasa? I'm not jealous, if that's what you're thinking," she added quickly, making sure to thoroughly explain as if writing an essay on the topic.
"The dynamic duo is more boring then ever," the lanky player half-agreed. "There are always fish in the sea." The homicidal Twin Blade gracefully leapt to his feet with his usual expression, teeth slightly pointed; all that was missing was the lolling tongue and he really would have seemed wolfish in nature. "This was a waste of my time," he stated in a bored tone. "I'm going to bed soon. I think I'll kill you tomorrow."
"Um..."
Sora bent downward to face her, showing no apparent signs of stumbling as his body curved accommodatingly. "Or maybe I won't," he breathed, the daunting warmth prompting a small shiver from Mimiru. (Sora enjoyed striking fear into others. Players in the Theta server knew.)
He took about four seconds to examine her features: clouded eyes shrouded in anticipation and fear, eyebrows raised almost to hairline--this expression was familiar. But once he got past that, the Heavy Blade was cute. Subaru had remarkable fairness, the type one would expect from a noble princess (or rich snob), and BT was more of the latter then the former--though she had her own type of untouchable, antisocial radiance.
And unlike either of those, Mimiru was outgoing. The World players and hardcore role-players always found it necessary to fabricate themselves in secrecy, warding others off; much to their distaste, Sora (and many others, he was sure) did not pursue what limited mystery and wonder they had to offer.
He liked killing, and that was that.
The katars jutted out from the gears on his wrists: he had allowed himself to linger for far too long, and using the member address collected from a corpse, Sora immediately sensed one of his many antsy targets had logged on...and besides, he never let himself talk a lot unless it was for the sheer purpose of irritating some poor soul. (He had accomplished this goal a while ago, but he ventured forth nonetheless. Typical Sora.)
"Or maybe I won't," he said again, rearing back one hand for a quick guillotine slice. His eyes glimmered and his message was clear and aforementioned: Talk is cheap. This one was, too. And the same hand plunged forth, prepared to cleave into a graphical piece of flesh and a graphical artery and a graphical collarbone.
His hand was caught before the dagger could make contact. Mimiru was not as high a level as Sora, but managed to steady her grasp, the other hand at the ready.
Sora blinked, then winked tactlessly. "Touché." But before he could complete the clean gesture with his other hand, Mimiru's palm flew into his face with a thwack. It wasn't a slap, per se; it was more of a shove. Directed at the face. Sora plopped onto the snow, mutedly nursing the print on the space between his forehead and his pointed nose. "Oww," he said disdainfully, obviously not that harmed but obviously not that pleased.
He wanted to leave. Now. But he couldn't. Similar events tended to occur in the presence of BT or Crim, and he would not back out of a quarrel with another player.
"I'm leaving," Mimiru declared, thrusting her blade into the air and heaving it onto her shoulder. "Good bye."
She was gone, and Sora frowned slightly, finger tracing the slight mark on his face. And then and there, he decided that another encounter was necessary--perhaps to upstage her, or harass her some more. Sora vanished as well, leaving behind a couple of full-body trails on the ground and some footprints.
Ah, what fun!
A/N: So, what do you think? This fanfic will consist mainly of little quarrels between Mimiru/Sora, and light fluff in-between. YAY!