.Hack//Relapse
A .Hack fanfiction by Renfro Calhoun
Disclaimer: Just like that Talking Heads song. You know the one :)
Notes: Takes place during Outbreak. Parentheses = thoughts, brackets = writing. I was planning on doing the cathedral scene in this chapter, since, as far as I've been able to determine, it happens relatively soon after Kite's encounter with Balmung. However, I wanted to keep it fairly faithful to the game script, and I forgot to bring my PS2 with me in order to do so, and since I just got back to my apartment today... well, suffice it to say I've been bouncing off the walls from my lack of productivity.
Towards that end, the chronology has been toyed with. Here there's a little more time between those two events, as this chapter dictates. Kindly forgive me, I wanted to write something and didn't want to keep you wonderful people waiting. Besides, I actually thought up something for Kite to do besides make time with the cute girl who follows him around for half the game - although that will get a sizable amount of text devoted to it. Ohhh, you better believe it will :)
Anyway, here goes!
Chapter 16 - From Another Time
------------------------------
For all intents and purposes, it was another day like all the others. For Hiroshi, however, the day seemed far too short.
The number of steps to his room was precisely the same as it was yesterday, and every day prior, yet today it felt unusually short, moreso than he would have liked. The obligatory conversation with his mom was likewise; the exchanges of 'how was your day' were over in a matter of minutes that barely felt like more than a few seconds, and any information gained from the dialogue was just as quickly forgotten.
Even the lectures from his teachers, in hindsight, had gone by quickly, and Hiro knew why. He'd known since he had taken his first step out of the house today, and it had hovered over his head like his own personal storm cloud.
He had absolutely nothing to do.
Hiroshi clumsily dropped his bookbag on the floor and collapsed on his bed, staring up at the ceiling as the facts stared him in the face.
With over a day since his last e-mail to or from anyone, and nearly two days since his encounter with Balmung in 'The World', there simply wasn't much happening, online or offline. And not for lack of trying, either; even his most recent hint - if one could call it that, being only a man's name - had turned up nothing.
Slowly he rose back to his feet, and pressed the power button on his computer, causing the slumbering machine to crawl to life. The exhaust fan began whirring lazily as the computer ran through its typical startup routine, diagnostics and programs popping up one by one on the screen, and disappearing just as quickly.
The desktop was next to appear, and program icons followed soon afterward. As the mail client blinked into visibility, Hiroshi allowed himself a disappointed frown at the lack of a new mail notification. The boy unceremoniously plopped into his chair and pulled himself closer to the desk. For no obvious reason, his hand guided the mouse to the client icon and opened it, regardless of its lack of content.
His eyes watched the predictably empty mailbox open itself up before him. (Nothing... where is everybody?) he thought. (Is my account down or something? Or is it theirs... or something with the network?)
One by one he scrolled over the many people on his address list, lingering for just a moment longer over BlackRose's than the others. For a moment, he toyed e-mailing her, but he dispelled that notion as quickly as it came, as the online hero was not feeling particularly brave at the moment.
He resumed scrolling down the list, but stopped cold when he came across one name in particular.
[Stolls - Stolls@theworld.com, DStollis@mailserv.net]
(Dean...) the name tumbled in his mind, as though generating the electricity that caused the lightbulmb in Hiroshi's brain to ignite. (Yeah, that's right, he's a detective. Maybe he can find something out about that guy!)
A small smile on his lips, Hiroshi reached for the phone with one hand, his other producing a small white card, which bore a phone number that he immediately began to punch in.
The receiver warbled in his hand, vibrating slightly from the repeated noise. After a few seconds of waiting, there was a click, and a man's voice answered. "Hello?"
Hiroshi's smile grew. "Hi, Dean!" he greeted in English. "It's Hiroshi."
Dean's voice upped a notch or two, as if in pleasant surprise. "Hey, Hiro man! How's it going?"
"Pretty good," he answered, not yet up to spilling the details of his troubles. "How about you?"
A slight crackle of static told Hiroshi that Dean was moving, and what sounded like a car engine verified this hypothesis. "Not too shabby. Haven't heard from you in a while, man; what's up on your end?"
"Well, I ran into Balmung - one of Yasu's friends in the game - and straightened things out with him; then I found out the name of someone involved with 'The World'." He paused. "Someone named 'Seijiro Tanaka,' but I'd never heard of him before. Have you?"
"Nah, doesn't ring a bell. Who is he?"
Hiroshi leaned to one side, onto the armrest of his chair. "I don't know. The player we talked to said it had something to do with 'Fragment,' how they were having problems similar to what's going on now. I was wondering if maybe you could find out more?"
He heard the detective 'hmm', and then a second later he added, "Well, it certainly couldn't hurt to check it out. How do you spell Seijiro?"
"S-E-I-J-I-R-O," Hiroshi spelled.
"Thanks, I'll see what I can dig up. If i find anything, I'll let you know. And you do the same."
"Sure thing," replied Hiroshi. "Thanks!"
"No problem. Hey, tell BlackRose I said 'hi'."
His face fell slightly at the mention of the Heavy Blade, but he maintained a cheerful facade. "Will do. See you later!"
He heard Dean answer with a "Later man," as he tapped the 'off' button. Setting the receiver down, Hiroshi turned back to the monitor, which still showed the open mail program.
(BlackRose...)
He allowed himself to stare at her name for a minute, and then half of another; slowly his eyes drifted away, and fell across one more name, one that would have caused even a happy facade to slip away.
(Maybe I should go see him,) he thought as he eyed Orca's member address. (Not like I've got anything else to do...)
-
It was a scene he'd seen several times in the past few months: a young boy around his age, lying prone on a bed, unconscious and attached to pieces of expensive medical equipment, chest rising and falling to a mechanical rhythm as the respirator breathed for him, body supplied with nutrients through the arm by the cold sharp tooth of an IV drip solution.
Hiroshi leaned forward in his chair, elbow on his knee and chin in his palm, watching Yasuhiko with only passive interest, trying hard to avoid the disturbingly calm look on his face.
Even with all he had seen, all he had done, the hero still didn't know how this was even possible, how a game could cause so much harm, and yet the proof lay before him, unmoving and unnerving.
(Yasu... what were you doing? Were you trying to fight this too?)
Yasuhiko's only reply came from the machine next to him, a steady beeping from an EKG that mirrored his pulse.
(I wonder how long you'll be like this... will you wake up if we solve this mystery? What if it doesn't help?)
Hiroshi's eyes trailed away from Yasuhiko, staring out the window at the city skyline, bathing merrily in the warm glow of the sun. (But I've got to try... BlackRose was right, it's too late to just back out now. It's all I can do.) He inhaled deeply and held it for a moment. (It's what we have to do.)
Rising from his chair, Hiroshi strode over to the side of the bed. Hesitantly, he touched a finger to Yasuhiko's left arm, surprised at how warm the skin was to the touch.
He shook his head, stepped away from the bed, made a small, frustrated noise. His friend was alive in every biological sense of the word, and yet he did nothing, said nothing. His heart beat, his lungs filled and emptied, his blood pumped and ran, his mind worked and lived, yet he was little more than a corpse. A calm, healthy, living corpse.
Shuddering, Hiroshi turned from the bed and moved to leave. "Get well soon, Yasu," he muttered under his breath as he turned the knob.
Slowly, he trudged away from the room, closing the door behind him as he stepped into the hall. A light chatter occupied his ears as doctors and nurses made their way between rooms, some toting trays, clipboards or pushcarts. Above, fluorescent lights shone unnecessarily, complementing the sunlight that flitted through the large glass window at the end of the hall, near the elevators.
Hiroshi made his way towards the nearest elevator, weaving through the minor foot traffic that barred his way. A few dozen steps later, he threw one last glance back at Yasuhiko's room, stepping out of the way as a doctor wheeled an empty gurney through.
His narrow black eyebrow arched in curiosity as he saw a man enter the room in question. It was little more than a second, but Hiroshi didn't doubt his eyes; he stuck out like a sore thumb, dressed in a navy business suit with a straight black tie. Although he lacked a clear look at the man's face, he didn't resemble any family that Hiroshi was familiar with, and the suit was wildly out of place in the pristine whiteness which colored the uniforms of the hospital staff.
Giving a mental 'huh?' he turned back to the room and cautiously appraoched, taking care not to make his change in direction, step or posture too conspicuous.
As quickly as careful feet could carry him, he reached the room once more, just in time to step into the man's field of view as he exited. The suit's eyes fell upon Hiroshi almost immediately, and Hiroshi's on him.
The eyes were blue; not cold or without humanity, but clearly no-nonsense and formal. Set somewhat uneven above a pinched nose, they appraised him hastily, narrowing just a touch. His hair was sharply cut and partly gray, attesting to at least five decades of life; the suit covered a fairly slender form, with no obvious excess to the body besides his hands, which showed no signs of hard labor.
"Excuse me," he said in a voice Hiroshi wanted to recognize. He stepped around the boy and continued towards Hiroshi's prior destination.
Puzzled, Hiro stepped back into Yasuhiko's room, prickles of uneasiness renewed against his skin, this time pondering who the man was and what he would be doing with his friend. Many a late night ill-spent watching movies of all variety fed him with numerous half-baked theories, but had also trained him to look for anything out of the ordinary, particularly with the patient's equipment.
Fears of sabotage were abated when he saw no visible change to the EKG and IV solution, the former still beeping steadily and the latter apparently untouched, as far as Hiro was able to determine.
(What the hell?)
Ducking out of the room, he turned to give chase, and watched as the man boarded the elevator and disappeared from sight. Thinking quickly, his eyes fell on a door leading to the starewell, and he broke into a determined stride, which quickly became a dash. He hastily pried the door open and began stomping down cold stone steps, as quick as he dared move.
The second floor passed by all too slowly; Hiro grabbed the railing and swung his body around like a pendulum to the next flight of steps, briefly entertaining doubts as to whether the man actually was headed to the ground floor or not. Panting and sweating, he stumbled to the bottom of the stairwell and raced through the door.
A cursory scan of the lobby told him his doubts were unfounded; he spotted the man in the suit, calmly strolling through the sliding glass door.
Hiroshi could barely get ten steps in the same direction before the man climbed into the passenger seat of a waiting black car; he closed the door behind him, and the car's tires sprung into action, turning against the pavement.
The car was away from the entrance before Hiro could even approach the glass doors, which impeded Hiro's vision and kept him from getting a good look at the vehicle as it casually fled the scene.
He took several deep breaths, fighting his since-risen pulse and feeling the sweat cool on his body. As he calmed down, he almost stopped himself from asking (Who was that,) in his mind, knowing he didn't have an answer, but suspecting that he knew who did.
(Yasu... what did you get yourself into?)
-
From: BlackRose@theworld.com
To: Kite@theworld.com
Subj: No Subject
If you are still in, we need to talk. I'll be waiting by the chained statue of the girl.
- End of Chapter 16
A .Hack fanfiction by Renfro Calhoun
Disclaimer: Just like that Talking Heads song. You know the one :)
Notes: Takes place during Outbreak. Parentheses = thoughts, brackets = writing. I was planning on doing the cathedral scene in this chapter, since, as far as I've been able to determine, it happens relatively soon after Kite's encounter with Balmung. However, I wanted to keep it fairly faithful to the game script, and I forgot to bring my PS2 with me in order to do so, and since I just got back to my apartment today... well, suffice it to say I've been bouncing off the walls from my lack of productivity.
Towards that end, the chronology has been toyed with. Here there's a little more time between those two events, as this chapter dictates. Kindly forgive me, I wanted to write something and didn't want to keep you wonderful people waiting. Besides, I actually thought up something for Kite to do besides make time with the cute girl who follows him around for half the game - although that will get a sizable amount of text devoted to it. Ohhh, you better believe it will :)
Anyway, here goes!
Chapter 16 - From Another Time
------------------------------
For all intents and purposes, it was another day like all the others. For Hiroshi, however, the day seemed far too short.
The number of steps to his room was precisely the same as it was yesterday, and every day prior, yet today it felt unusually short, moreso than he would have liked. The obligatory conversation with his mom was likewise; the exchanges of 'how was your day' were over in a matter of minutes that barely felt like more than a few seconds, and any information gained from the dialogue was just as quickly forgotten.
Even the lectures from his teachers, in hindsight, had gone by quickly, and Hiro knew why. He'd known since he had taken his first step out of the house today, and it had hovered over his head like his own personal storm cloud.
He had absolutely nothing to do.
Hiroshi clumsily dropped his bookbag on the floor and collapsed on his bed, staring up at the ceiling as the facts stared him in the face.
With over a day since his last e-mail to or from anyone, and nearly two days since his encounter with Balmung in 'The World', there simply wasn't much happening, online or offline. And not for lack of trying, either; even his most recent hint - if one could call it that, being only a man's name - had turned up nothing.
Slowly he rose back to his feet, and pressed the power button on his computer, causing the slumbering machine to crawl to life. The exhaust fan began whirring lazily as the computer ran through its typical startup routine, diagnostics and programs popping up one by one on the screen, and disappearing just as quickly.
The desktop was next to appear, and program icons followed soon afterward. As the mail client blinked into visibility, Hiroshi allowed himself a disappointed frown at the lack of a new mail notification. The boy unceremoniously plopped into his chair and pulled himself closer to the desk. For no obvious reason, his hand guided the mouse to the client icon and opened it, regardless of its lack of content.
His eyes watched the predictably empty mailbox open itself up before him. (Nothing... where is everybody?) he thought. (Is my account down or something? Or is it theirs... or something with the network?)
One by one he scrolled over the many people on his address list, lingering for just a moment longer over BlackRose's than the others. For a moment, he toyed e-mailing her, but he dispelled that notion as quickly as it came, as the online hero was not feeling particularly brave at the moment.
He resumed scrolling down the list, but stopped cold when he came across one name in particular.
[Stolls - Stolls@theworld.com, DStollis@mailserv.net]
(Dean...) the name tumbled in his mind, as though generating the electricity that caused the lightbulmb in Hiroshi's brain to ignite. (Yeah, that's right, he's a detective. Maybe he can find something out about that guy!)
A small smile on his lips, Hiroshi reached for the phone with one hand, his other producing a small white card, which bore a phone number that he immediately began to punch in.
The receiver warbled in his hand, vibrating slightly from the repeated noise. After a few seconds of waiting, there was a click, and a man's voice answered. "Hello?"
Hiroshi's smile grew. "Hi, Dean!" he greeted in English. "It's Hiroshi."
Dean's voice upped a notch or two, as if in pleasant surprise. "Hey, Hiro man! How's it going?"
"Pretty good," he answered, not yet up to spilling the details of his troubles. "How about you?"
A slight crackle of static told Hiroshi that Dean was moving, and what sounded like a car engine verified this hypothesis. "Not too shabby. Haven't heard from you in a while, man; what's up on your end?"
"Well, I ran into Balmung - one of Yasu's friends in the game - and straightened things out with him; then I found out the name of someone involved with 'The World'." He paused. "Someone named 'Seijiro Tanaka,' but I'd never heard of him before. Have you?"
"Nah, doesn't ring a bell. Who is he?"
Hiroshi leaned to one side, onto the armrest of his chair. "I don't know. The player we talked to said it had something to do with 'Fragment,' how they were having problems similar to what's going on now. I was wondering if maybe you could find out more?"
He heard the detective 'hmm', and then a second later he added, "Well, it certainly couldn't hurt to check it out. How do you spell Seijiro?"
"S-E-I-J-I-R-O," Hiroshi spelled.
"Thanks, I'll see what I can dig up. If i find anything, I'll let you know. And you do the same."
"Sure thing," replied Hiroshi. "Thanks!"
"No problem. Hey, tell BlackRose I said 'hi'."
His face fell slightly at the mention of the Heavy Blade, but he maintained a cheerful facade. "Will do. See you later!"
He heard Dean answer with a "Later man," as he tapped the 'off' button. Setting the receiver down, Hiroshi turned back to the monitor, which still showed the open mail program.
(BlackRose...)
He allowed himself to stare at her name for a minute, and then half of another; slowly his eyes drifted away, and fell across one more name, one that would have caused even a happy facade to slip away.
(Maybe I should go see him,) he thought as he eyed Orca's member address. (Not like I've got anything else to do...)
-
It was a scene he'd seen several times in the past few months: a young boy around his age, lying prone on a bed, unconscious and attached to pieces of expensive medical equipment, chest rising and falling to a mechanical rhythm as the respirator breathed for him, body supplied with nutrients through the arm by the cold sharp tooth of an IV drip solution.
Hiroshi leaned forward in his chair, elbow on his knee and chin in his palm, watching Yasuhiko with only passive interest, trying hard to avoid the disturbingly calm look on his face.
Even with all he had seen, all he had done, the hero still didn't know how this was even possible, how a game could cause so much harm, and yet the proof lay before him, unmoving and unnerving.
(Yasu... what were you doing? Were you trying to fight this too?)
Yasuhiko's only reply came from the machine next to him, a steady beeping from an EKG that mirrored his pulse.
(I wonder how long you'll be like this... will you wake up if we solve this mystery? What if it doesn't help?)
Hiroshi's eyes trailed away from Yasuhiko, staring out the window at the city skyline, bathing merrily in the warm glow of the sun. (But I've got to try... BlackRose was right, it's too late to just back out now. It's all I can do.) He inhaled deeply and held it for a moment. (It's what we have to do.)
Rising from his chair, Hiroshi strode over to the side of the bed. Hesitantly, he touched a finger to Yasuhiko's left arm, surprised at how warm the skin was to the touch.
He shook his head, stepped away from the bed, made a small, frustrated noise. His friend was alive in every biological sense of the word, and yet he did nothing, said nothing. His heart beat, his lungs filled and emptied, his blood pumped and ran, his mind worked and lived, yet he was little more than a corpse. A calm, healthy, living corpse.
Shuddering, Hiroshi turned from the bed and moved to leave. "Get well soon, Yasu," he muttered under his breath as he turned the knob.
Slowly, he trudged away from the room, closing the door behind him as he stepped into the hall. A light chatter occupied his ears as doctors and nurses made their way between rooms, some toting trays, clipboards or pushcarts. Above, fluorescent lights shone unnecessarily, complementing the sunlight that flitted through the large glass window at the end of the hall, near the elevators.
Hiroshi made his way towards the nearest elevator, weaving through the minor foot traffic that barred his way. A few dozen steps later, he threw one last glance back at Yasuhiko's room, stepping out of the way as a doctor wheeled an empty gurney through.
His narrow black eyebrow arched in curiosity as he saw a man enter the room in question. It was little more than a second, but Hiroshi didn't doubt his eyes; he stuck out like a sore thumb, dressed in a navy business suit with a straight black tie. Although he lacked a clear look at the man's face, he didn't resemble any family that Hiroshi was familiar with, and the suit was wildly out of place in the pristine whiteness which colored the uniforms of the hospital staff.
Giving a mental 'huh?' he turned back to the room and cautiously appraoched, taking care not to make his change in direction, step or posture too conspicuous.
As quickly as careful feet could carry him, he reached the room once more, just in time to step into the man's field of view as he exited. The suit's eyes fell upon Hiroshi almost immediately, and Hiroshi's on him.
The eyes were blue; not cold or without humanity, but clearly no-nonsense and formal. Set somewhat uneven above a pinched nose, they appraised him hastily, narrowing just a touch. His hair was sharply cut and partly gray, attesting to at least five decades of life; the suit covered a fairly slender form, with no obvious excess to the body besides his hands, which showed no signs of hard labor.
"Excuse me," he said in a voice Hiroshi wanted to recognize. He stepped around the boy and continued towards Hiroshi's prior destination.
Puzzled, Hiro stepped back into Yasuhiko's room, prickles of uneasiness renewed against his skin, this time pondering who the man was and what he would be doing with his friend. Many a late night ill-spent watching movies of all variety fed him with numerous half-baked theories, but had also trained him to look for anything out of the ordinary, particularly with the patient's equipment.
Fears of sabotage were abated when he saw no visible change to the EKG and IV solution, the former still beeping steadily and the latter apparently untouched, as far as Hiro was able to determine.
(What the hell?)
Ducking out of the room, he turned to give chase, and watched as the man boarded the elevator and disappeared from sight. Thinking quickly, his eyes fell on a door leading to the starewell, and he broke into a determined stride, which quickly became a dash. He hastily pried the door open and began stomping down cold stone steps, as quick as he dared move.
The second floor passed by all too slowly; Hiro grabbed the railing and swung his body around like a pendulum to the next flight of steps, briefly entertaining doubts as to whether the man actually was headed to the ground floor or not. Panting and sweating, he stumbled to the bottom of the stairwell and raced through the door.
A cursory scan of the lobby told him his doubts were unfounded; he spotted the man in the suit, calmly strolling through the sliding glass door.
Hiroshi could barely get ten steps in the same direction before the man climbed into the passenger seat of a waiting black car; he closed the door behind him, and the car's tires sprung into action, turning against the pavement.
The car was away from the entrance before Hiro could even approach the glass doors, which impeded Hiro's vision and kept him from getting a good look at the vehicle as it casually fled the scene.
He took several deep breaths, fighting his since-risen pulse and feeling the sweat cool on his body. As he calmed down, he almost stopped himself from asking (Who was that,) in his mind, knowing he didn't have an answer, but suspecting that he knew who did.
(Yasu... what did you get yourself into?)
-
From: BlackRose@theworld.com
To: Kite@theworld.com
Subj: No Subject
If you are still in, we need to talk. I'll be waiting by the chained statue of the girl.
- End of Chapter 16