Tell me of a story never ever told in the past- Key of the Twilight
Five
Username: Jean
Password:
I noticed the server loaded faster tonight...or this morning, rather. Of course it made sense that not many players would be online at such an hour. It was daylight again in the game. I recognized the same town gates I signed off from and began to walk the streets. There was no sign of Jirou, Taki or Mitsuke. Not that I expected any.
"Jean?"
I turned around slowly at the hesitant call from a voice I didn't know. A few steps behind me was a brunette in dark green and brown clothes and holding a bow in front of him. An archer, obviously. I wondered if he was pertaining to me or somebody else but then his eyes locked on mine and I was sure. I don't know what made me do it, but I started to walk towards him even though I didn't know him. He walked to me too, although in a much faster pace.
"Jean, right?" he asked. I nodded my head then cocked it to one side.
"How'd you..?" I asked.
"Mitsuke told me about you," he answered, "Nice to meet you. My name's Yuyha."
Yuyha...Yuyha...Jirou said he and Mitsuke would be looking for a Yuyha. I nodded my head again. "Oh yeah. You, Mitsuke, Jirou and Taki form a party, right?"
He shifted the bow to his other hand. "Taki? Maybe you mean Takeshi," he said, shrugging. I shrugged back. The two of us were walking towards the outskirts of town. "So what are you doing up so late? It's around one or so in America, isn't it?" he asked.
"How can you be sure I'm from America?" I asked back curiously. As I have said, The World is an online game and people from many countries play it, of all races. That's why there was always more than ten thousand players online at the same time at any time of the day or night.
"I'm not wrong, am I?" I shook my head. "Your voice. I've been playing for such a long time that I've come to recognize most accents." I nodded my head though it was rather hard for me to understand what he meant. But then again, if you listened to his intently, you'll realize it was identifiable Japanese. I told him so and he nodded his head.
"Why do you play?" I blurted out suddenly. He turned to look at me as if asking a reason for the question. "I mean, since, like you said, you've been around for awhile...."
"It's my job," he answered, shrugging. His job? I stared back at him. He must have caught it because he said, "I have a mission here..." If I wasn't so taken aback by his weird answers, I was sure I heard him add, "...one that would involve you." Perhaps not though, the next second I found him tossing the question back at me.
"I..." I started to answer but trailed off with the look he was giving me. His PC's face was unreadable, of course, but his eyes were on me the whole time, as if waiting for an answer. I sure hoped I wasn't in any kind of trouble. I decided to go for the truth. "It's an escape from reality. Game-worlds are far better to live in. I just want to quit real life for awhile and live elsewhere, be someone else."
"Hey, we're here," he announced and I looked up. He didn't seem to have heard my answer. Wooden gates towered in front of us but they weren't the ones I was familiar of.
"Where are we going?" I asked as he started to push it open.
He shrugged. "Wherever you want to go, Jean."
"...I just want to quit real life for awhile and live elsewhere, be someone else."
He rolled onto his back in the bed, slightly regretful that he had not come online and met this Jean player himself. Especially since sleep hadn't visited him the whole night. All in due time though. The two of them would meet, eventually. He listened intently as the person on the other end of the line decribed the time he spent with the brown-haired player, glossing over things that meant little to either of them and elaborating on the ones that were of interest.
"He plays with such a passion I've only seen once before..." At this point, the voice sounded hesitant but then continued, "...in Lilika. And when we came to the end of the dungeon, his eyes were light blue. I am certain they were dark green when we met. And also, the blue was...different, one that you wouldn't be able to find in the colour palette --- I checked." The last part was added hastily and reassuredly. Not one member of their party had blue eyes so none of them ever really looked into the shades for blue before.
"I guess he really is the next target then," he answered after awhile, still digesting the information. It was too much for him to handle, this was Mitsuke's forte and not his. He was only good in fighting unlike the other two, although his will to complete their mission might rival even that of Yuyha's who had been on it for years before they joined him. "What do you plan to do, Yuyha?"
"I don't know. For now, let's just keep an eye out for him. He seems to trust our party. Tell Mitsuke everything I've told you for me. I have to go somewhere tomorrow. Will you be online?"
"You mean today. Maybe not. But I'm sure Mitsuke will be. How about Jirou?"
"No, he won't be. Don't worry about him. I'm going to my sister's, they'd be running some tests."
"I see. Be careful, Yuyha."
"Of course. Good day, Takeshi."
"Are you sure about this? It might just have been a glitch..."
"Of course I'm sure. I saw his eyes, you saw them too. And when he was fighting Mitsuke, it happened again. Plus, he moves with such ease. And you saw him, he doesn't look like any other character in The World, does he?...What's wrong? Don't you trust me, anymore?"
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. I trust you of course, but I'm not so keen on the idea of travelling to some god-forsaken place again only to find out we're mistaken when I get there."
"We're not. Yuyha and his group are already onto his case."
"Oh shit...We're late then?"
"Nah, I don't think so. He's their key. They wouldn't dare frighten him off by telling him while he's still not ready. And, anyway, I'll take care of them so don't worry about them, worry about Jean."
"Jean...that brown-braid is in trouble without knowing it."
"Actually, I think he's a blonde IRL."
"A blonde?"
"Yeah."
"So you got his address already? Profile? The works?"
"What did you expect? Of course! I'll e-mail them to you. You know what to do, don't you?"
"Yes."
"Oh, and one more thing. This time I want to repeat...They're making me get off. Yuyha's sister is going to run tests today. I'll tell you the details later on."
"I see. Be careful, Jirou."
"Of course. Good day, Taki."
Author's Notes:
Kil - Sorry for the delay! Here's the fifth chapter...and the sixth. Btw, CGT fic readers/writers, please join Jirou's CGT Fanfiction Fanlisting! you are lost in your way
deep in an awesome story
don't be in doubt and stray
cling to your lonesome folly - a stray child
Six
I woke up to the sound of my phone ringing. I instinctively answered it without even opening my eyes. Only a few people know my private number, my closest friends, and though the most talkative of them, Kazuya, calls me most often, I knew who was on the other end and it wasn't him.
"I've been calling for ages, Kuroudo! Where were you?" Kyousuke. He was the only one with no awareness of time to call me so early in the morning.
"Right here, in my bed. You woke me up," I answered, trying not to sound grumpy and failing miserably. My voice was groggy and a bit whiny. I winced and sat up on bed.
"Woke you up?" he echoed in disbelief. There were some strange noises on the other end. "It's already eleven! You've slept twelve and a half hours straight!"
"Not so loud, Kyousuke!" I said into the phone, my head already starting to ache. I had no plans, however, to tell him that I just resumed sleep four hours ago. Still though...four hours ago? I had a couple of hours of sleep on the couch before playing The World. Perhaps I did oversleep."And yeah? So what..."
There was silence on his part and then. "What's wrong?"
I wasn't that obvious, was I? "Dad slept out last night."
"I'm coming over." He hung up.
I changed out of the clothes I've been wearing since yesterday into fresh ones. Glancing at my now inactive computer, I went out of the room and walked down the hallway. On my way down the stairs, I thought about my recent adventures in what I now call my other world.
It had been fun, really. Yuyha was a good teacher, seemed a bit knowledgeable about white mages, perhaps he had been one before? Or maybe, as he said, it's because he has been along for some time. I wondered how old he was. Probably not that old. The World had many legends, he told me some while we explored the ruins, but it wasn't that old. The game was around seven years or so in existence. But it was so real, I could believe the half-century old monsters we've battled were born and not created, growing inside and along with The World.
By the time we reached the end of the dungeon, I managed to raise my level to eight. Yuyha only raised his level by one, he said we've been in a beginner's dungeon, but I had the worst times, and at the same time feeling the best, in battling my way through it. The archer was the strongest in their party, at level 39, but the other three weren't that far behind. He said that Jirou and Mitsuke played the most among them, though the black mage preferred to hang around with Takeshi, a swordsman. They've been together before their party was made. He said I'll get to meet Takeshi soon enough.
By then I've realized that Takeshi and Taki weren't the same people. I wondered why Taki wasn't in their party since he seemed to be good friends with Jirou. Yuyha talked as if he didn't know about Taki at all and I never inserted him into our conversation since there really was no point to it.
I entered the kitchen and turned on the lights. It wasn't that dark but it was exceptionally dim for eleven in the morning. I looked out the window to see dark clouds and the sun shifting in and out of view from behind them. Great. The perfect clincher to my already breaking life -- rain.
Mother was already out, that much I could sense from the stillness of the house. On the table were some toast, some ham, and a note. I picked it up and read it as I took a carton of orange juice from out of the fridge. It was from her, a rephrase of her note five years ago. She said the same things, that she was sorry, that she'll try to work it out with Dad and that she loved me. I'll never forget it.
I pulled myself up onto the counter and mulled things over as I ate my very late breakfast, starting to feel a little guilty. Perhaps I shouldn't have reacted the way I had last night. Mother surely didn't deserve it. I'll have to apologize to her when she returns.
I finished the rest of my food and looked out through the window and into the streets. What was taking Kyousuke so long? Leaving the plates in the sink so I could wash them along with the ones I'll be using for lunch -- that is, if I'll have lunch -- I walked out into the hallway and used the phone to call his private line. It was busy. I called their house phone which had call-waiting but no one was picking up.
Wonder what came up?
I found the house too silent for my sanity and decided to get out. I wrote a note to Kyousuke -- or my mom if she gets home earlier than me which is unlikely -- explaining that I would be going to the playground. I'll only be out for three hours tops. I called his house again, both phones, before leaving but the result was the same. Grabbing my jacket from where it hung near the door, I slipped in a spare set of house keys into one of its pockets and stepped outside, posting the note on the door.
"Damn you, father. You didn't tell me it would be this cold here."
It had been raining since noon. A young girl sat under a waiting shed, hugging herself in a blind attempt at getting warm. Her skin was pale and a blue color was on her lips. She wore decidedly thin clothes, plain shirt and pants clinging to her body with cold dampness. On her lap was a beaten-up leather case wrapped in an old jacket and a small suitcase was by her feet, almost within reach of mud. She was waiting for someone, but that someone did not she was waiting for her.
A car pulled up and a fairly handsome young man opened the windows and waved her over. She shook her head 'no'. The man shrugged as if to say 'your loss', closed the window and continued on his merry way. She glared at the back of the car as it sped off. To think that he thought she was a pick-up girl! Outrageous!
She was still fuming when another car pulled up and instead one of the windows, a door opened. All trace of anger left her as soon as she saw who was sitting inside the car, the one person she had been waiting for all along. Beautiful pale face, short blonde hair, kind blue eyes...
Madame Francine Marume.
"Dear, get in. I'll drop you off," she said, shaking her head a little at state of the young girl's clothes and the yung girl herself. "Where do you live?"
She shook her head again. "I don't have anywhere you can drop me off," she whispered, eyes lowering to the ground in shame. She felt the French woman's eyes on her before hearing a soft sigh.
"Well then, get in still," she said and then, almost to herself, "I'm sure Kuroudo would like some others' company with what we're going through..."
Author's Notes:
Kil - Here's the sixth chapter. You'll know who the girl is in the eight, I think. More action among the mages in The World in the next!
Disclaimers: We don't own CGT or any of the .hack series, anime or game. Not its soundtracks either, which includes 'Fake Wings', where this fic's title and opening verses come from along with 'Key of the Twilight' and 'a stray child'.