.Hack//Relapse
A .Hack fanfiction by Renfro Calhoun
Disclaimer: Project .Hack owns me, not the other way around.
Notes: Takes place during Outbreak. Thoughts = (like so), text = [like so]. And here I thought it was going to be easy doing this because the dialogue was all there. Oh-hooooo, was I mistaken. Ah well. 'tis a labor of love!
Read on, my friends, read on. With the exception of Bear, real-life names of in-game characters are made up until proven otherwise. And don't worry; I've got WAFF of my own coming down the pike. Just be patient, and that goes double for you-know-who :)
Chapter 17 - Smaller Every Day
------------------------------
He spotted her, standing before the large, chained statue of Aura, hands resting on the small fence between her and the statue. Her head was hung forward, in reflection, reverence or sorrow - he couldn't tell which from where he stood.
Leather shoes padded softly against the marble floor, carrying Kite away from the massive arched door and further into the vaulted interior of the cathedral, past the empty wooden pews and around the ancient stone tablet in the center aisle. His approach, though quiet, was magnified in the silence that engulfed the chapel. Still, BlackRose made neither movement nor sound as he came to a stop behind her, just outside of arm's reach.
He knew she was at her terminal: her chest and shoulders rose and fell in a simulation of breathing; the one eye he could see was half-shut, and she lacked the typical, casual smile he had come to associate with her.
Her head lifted, gradually turning to glance at him, the right half of her face as downtrodden as the left. She met his eyes for a moment, but said nothing; he noticed the wine-colored orbs twitch, just slightly, as she turned back to the statue.
"Do you want to know something?" she asked, breaking the silence. When Kite didn't object, she continued. "My brother fell unconscious here."
The last piece of the puzzle fell into place, and like that he knew, even before his mind could catch up. His suspicions confirmed, Kite was nonetheless surprised; his eyes widened, and he gasped.
BlackRose hung her head again, and looked away to her right. "I didn't tell you because... I couldn't find the right time," she expained. Her voice, normally confident and lively, now sounded uncertain and soft, vulnerable even. "Sorry," she added, exposing the rose beyond her thorns.
Kite gulped, tongue-tied and unsure whether she had more to say. He felt an odd lightness in the pit of his stomach, wondering if that was all she had called him for, to hear her confession.
She turned away from the railing, facing Kite. "When I first met you, I forced you to come here, right?" she asked, looking back to the statue.
His tongue loosened, just enough for him to reply with a quiet "Yeah."
"I wanted to see what had happened here with my own eyes. Yet I was too frightened to come here by myself," she admitted, again resting her hands on the railing. "And I still feel that way." Her voice grew weaker, tighter, almost cracking. "I'm very, very scared."
Kite regarded her with no small amount of concern. This was not the strong, determined fighter he had partnered with; this was her player, a concerned and confused girl who just wanted to know what had happened to someone she cared about, and why. This was the softer side of BlackRose, the side he had only seen hints of before.
His heart sank, and with it his head. He now knew it was a pain they shared, had always shared.
BlackRose looked down at the foot of the statue, her eyes drooping shut for a moment. "But... I wouldn't have gotten this far without you." He barely had time to feel flattered as she continued. "So... what am I going to do," she suddenly whirled around, her voice rising, " if you start doubting yourself?"
Not waiting for a response, the Heavy Blade clasped her hands to her chest, a desperate look in her eyes. "How am I supposed to cope? Does a big sister always have to be happy?!" she half-shouted, half-cried.
Hiroshi stared intensely at her, his breath shortened and strained, afraid to make a sound as BlackRose's puppeteer bared her soul.
She faced the statue again, quiet sobs causing her shoulders to heave and body to tremble. "I want... I want to..."
Feeling nothing but pity and compassion for her, Hiro felt tears begin to well at the corner of his eyes; he tentatively reached for her, momentarily forgetting that the two were separated by a world of ones and zeroes, by fake names and computer-generated pictures. His only concern, his only thought, lay in easing the pain of the girl before him.
(All this time I had thought, but I didn't... I knew I couldn't be the only one in this situation, and yet I... never stopped to think about it.)
"BlackRose," he said, softly, wishing he could have addressed the person on the other end, "please don't cry."
Her head jerked sharply down and left. "Wh-what do you mean?" she challenged. "I'm not crying! You can't even see me, so don't make any assumptions!"
The sudden outburst caught Kite off his guard, and he withdrew his hand, unsure how to react.
A few seconds of silence, and then she turned back to face him. "There you go, how typical." She managed a sad smile; he swore he saw something shining in the corner of her eyes, where tears would normally pool. "You always clam up when you should be talking."
Knowing that was his cue, Kite lowered his gaze and replied, "Yeah... I'm sorry." After a beat, he looked back up, meeting her eyes. "I was wrong, in thinking I'm the only one who's trying to do something about Orca and the disaster."
It felt different once spoken aloud; he'd remembered his own internal quarrels along similar lines not too long ago, how he'd reached several conclusions in his mind and swore to act accordingly, but hadn't yet. For someone who fought so hard to help him resolve this mystery, far too much went unsaid between them.
Feeling his chest loosen and the weight disappear, he swallowed down the lump in his throat and spoke up. "Everybody wants to do something. Now I know. I'm not the only one." He sighed. "We all want to bring this whole horrible mess to an end."
He noticed his companion's posture and demeanor improve somewhat; her head tilted slightly to the right, watching him expectantly while she clasped her hands behind her back. "Yeah..." she muttered, the sadness in her eyes starting to vanish.
"What can we do about the situation now?" he asked rhetorically, raising his hand and balling it into a fist. "It's simple, we've got to do what we think is right." Letting his hand fall back to his side, he added, "That's the only way we'll move forward."
Her smile lightened, her face quickly reverting to the casual, amiable expression he knew and loved, yet with a defined softness to the eyes and demureness to her stance that suggested it was still more than BlackRose he was talking to. "Yup. Let's do it together," she said, turning fully to Kite. "Things'll work out."
She giggled softly - it made him feel better just hearing it - and arched to her right in front of the Twin Blade. "My intuition is pretty good," she said, hints of cheer returning to her voice.
Hiroshi couldn't help but chuckle, offering a smiling emote for a visual response to complement the actual smile on his avatar.
Standing up straight, she stepped around to his side, still facing him. "Well, I'm off to go see my brother."
"At the hospital?"
"Mm-hmm," she affirmed and started to walk away, offering a light wave and a quiet, "Thanks."
He watched her leave, cherishing each footstep despite that they all sounded the same; he continued to stare even after she left his sight, the Heavy Blade stripped early from view by his computer, a cruel separation necessary to maintain a smooth framerate.
"Thank you," he whispered, "to you too."
-
From: DStollis@mailserv.net
To: Kite@theworld.com
Subj: Seijiro Tanaka
Hey man. Found out some bits and pieces about that Seijiro guy you mentioned; it seems he was working with Harold Hoerwick, creator of 'The World' - or, at least, Harold knew him. My sources have hinted that Seijiro is somehow responsible for the A.I. entity that is behind the incidents in 'The World'; his program was referred to as a 'lock', whereas Aura is a 'key' of some sort.
Most of this is speculation, but it would explain why Aura is being pursued by those phases you mentioned. Regardless, I'm going to try and track down Seijiro and see if we can't get some answers. I'll have more for you soon. In the meantime, follow up anything on your end and let me know if you need anything else, or if you find out anything.
- Dean
-
His reflection stared back at him from the monitor, dark from the lack of power. His suit was visible in the dull mirror, as was the burning cigarette in his hand. On his desk, from left to right: a single photo of a young girl in a school uniform; a small, green-shaded lamp; the base which formerly held the phone receiver in his other hand; a raised panel of wood, upon which [Francis Moritsu] was printed in slim white letters; the monitor for his personal computer, with the computer itself mounted on the floor.
"So you saw him?" a man asked through the receiver.
He took a deep breath, causing the lit end of his cigarette to flare up. "Yes," he said, releasing a puff of smoke. "It was him, there's no question."
"How did he look?"
"How do you think he looked?" Francis shot back. "He's been in a coma for months; he looked like a ghost."
"But he's alive, right?" There was a hint of concern in his voice.
"In a manner of speaking," was his reply. "And it was definitely a phase that put him there."
"You don't know that." Another hint, this one defensive.
Francis growled, his frown accenting the wrinkles on his face. "Do not presume to tell me what I do and do not know, my friend. Either Harold put it there, or someone in this company did, and I'm starting to wonder if it wasn't you."
"Don't you dare, don't you DARE try to pin this on me!" he shouted. "I've told you everything I know; besides, aren't you working with someone to put a stop to this?"
"He's just a kid." Francis took another drag from his cigarette, savoring the scent as he exhaled. "I hesitate to put all our hopes on him, without even understanding what it is we're up against."
"You said it destroyed Net Slum?"
"So it would seem," he answered. "It was... like nothing I've ever seen before. Harold couldn't possibly have meant for that thing to be."
"Frank, I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times, I don't know any more than you do."
"I'm not accusing you of anything, Tanaka, but the fact is I don't have a single idea how to handle something like this, or if it's even possible to stop it now. It was enormous, and it's getting bigger."
"You're security, this is what you do. There's got to be something. What about Delphi?"
"Don't even get me started," spat Francis. "That thing was more trouble than it was worth from day one, and we don't even know if it would work against those phases. If it were up to me, I would've ordered its deletion a year ago. Even if we wanted to, with the original programmer dead and all the data destroyed, it's impossible." He sighed. "Never thought I'd say this, but that punk from Los Angeles did us a favor."
"So what ARE you going to do?"
Another sigh, this one laced with frustration. "*Maybe*, if the player of Orca was conscious, he would know more about what we're dealing with. Since he and Balmung were at the center of the One Sin event, it's possible he somehow learned something that Harold never told us about. Something within the programming itself, a clue, maybe. If this thing really did come from Fragment, from Morganna... then perhaps the answer lies within Fragment itself."
"That sounds like a long shot."
"At best, but it's all I can think of. And there's nothing we can do now."
"I suppose not. Well, I should be going, I'm expecting company."
"Very well," said Francis. "See you later, Tanaka."
"You too, 'Lios'. Good luck."
- End of Chapter 17
A .Hack fanfiction by Renfro Calhoun
Disclaimer: Project .Hack owns me, not the other way around.
Notes: Takes place during Outbreak. Thoughts = (like so), text = [like so]. And here I thought it was going to be easy doing this because the dialogue was all there. Oh-hooooo, was I mistaken. Ah well. 'tis a labor of love!
Read on, my friends, read on. With the exception of Bear, real-life names of in-game characters are made up until proven otherwise. And don't worry; I've got WAFF of my own coming down the pike. Just be patient, and that goes double for you-know-who :)
Chapter 17 - Smaller Every Day
------------------------------
He spotted her, standing before the large, chained statue of Aura, hands resting on the small fence between her and the statue. Her head was hung forward, in reflection, reverence or sorrow - he couldn't tell which from where he stood.
Leather shoes padded softly against the marble floor, carrying Kite away from the massive arched door and further into the vaulted interior of the cathedral, past the empty wooden pews and around the ancient stone tablet in the center aisle. His approach, though quiet, was magnified in the silence that engulfed the chapel. Still, BlackRose made neither movement nor sound as he came to a stop behind her, just outside of arm's reach.
He knew she was at her terminal: her chest and shoulders rose and fell in a simulation of breathing; the one eye he could see was half-shut, and she lacked the typical, casual smile he had come to associate with her.
Her head lifted, gradually turning to glance at him, the right half of her face as downtrodden as the left. She met his eyes for a moment, but said nothing; he noticed the wine-colored orbs twitch, just slightly, as she turned back to the statue.
"Do you want to know something?" she asked, breaking the silence. When Kite didn't object, she continued. "My brother fell unconscious here."
The last piece of the puzzle fell into place, and like that he knew, even before his mind could catch up. His suspicions confirmed, Kite was nonetheless surprised; his eyes widened, and he gasped.
BlackRose hung her head again, and looked away to her right. "I didn't tell you because... I couldn't find the right time," she expained. Her voice, normally confident and lively, now sounded uncertain and soft, vulnerable even. "Sorry," she added, exposing the rose beyond her thorns.
Kite gulped, tongue-tied and unsure whether she had more to say. He felt an odd lightness in the pit of his stomach, wondering if that was all she had called him for, to hear her confession.
She turned away from the railing, facing Kite. "When I first met you, I forced you to come here, right?" she asked, looking back to the statue.
His tongue loosened, just enough for him to reply with a quiet "Yeah."
"I wanted to see what had happened here with my own eyes. Yet I was too frightened to come here by myself," she admitted, again resting her hands on the railing. "And I still feel that way." Her voice grew weaker, tighter, almost cracking. "I'm very, very scared."
Kite regarded her with no small amount of concern. This was not the strong, determined fighter he had partnered with; this was her player, a concerned and confused girl who just wanted to know what had happened to someone she cared about, and why. This was the softer side of BlackRose, the side he had only seen hints of before.
His heart sank, and with it his head. He now knew it was a pain they shared, had always shared.
BlackRose looked down at the foot of the statue, her eyes drooping shut for a moment. "But... I wouldn't have gotten this far without you." He barely had time to feel flattered as she continued. "So... what am I going to do," she suddenly whirled around, her voice rising, " if you start doubting yourself?"
Not waiting for a response, the Heavy Blade clasped her hands to her chest, a desperate look in her eyes. "How am I supposed to cope? Does a big sister always have to be happy?!" she half-shouted, half-cried.
Hiroshi stared intensely at her, his breath shortened and strained, afraid to make a sound as BlackRose's puppeteer bared her soul.
She faced the statue again, quiet sobs causing her shoulders to heave and body to tremble. "I want... I want to..."
Feeling nothing but pity and compassion for her, Hiro felt tears begin to well at the corner of his eyes; he tentatively reached for her, momentarily forgetting that the two were separated by a world of ones and zeroes, by fake names and computer-generated pictures. His only concern, his only thought, lay in easing the pain of the girl before him.
(All this time I had thought, but I didn't... I knew I couldn't be the only one in this situation, and yet I... never stopped to think about it.)
"BlackRose," he said, softly, wishing he could have addressed the person on the other end, "please don't cry."
Her head jerked sharply down and left. "Wh-what do you mean?" she challenged. "I'm not crying! You can't even see me, so don't make any assumptions!"
The sudden outburst caught Kite off his guard, and he withdrew his hand, unsure how to react.
A few seconds of silence, and then she turned back to face him. "There you go, how typical." She managed a sad smile; he swore he saw something shining in the corner of her eyes, where tears would normally pool. "You always clam up when you should be talking."
Knowing that was his cue, Kite lowered his gaze and replied, "Yeah... I'm sorry." After a beat, he looked back up, meeting her eyes. "I was wrong, in thinking I'm the only one who's trying to do something about Orca and the disaster."
It felt different once spoken aloud; he'd remembered his own internal quarrels along similar lines not too long ago, how he'd reached several conclusions in his mind and swore to act accordingly, but hadn't yet. For someone who fought so hard to help him resolve this mystery, far too much went unsaid between them.
Feeling his chest loosen and the weight disappear, he swallowed down the lump in his throat and spoke up. "Everybody wants to do something. Now I know. I'm not the only one." He sighed. "We all want to bring this whole horrible mess to an end."
He noticed his companion's posture and demeanor improve somewhat; her head tilted slightly to the right, watching him expectantly while she clasped her hands behind her back. "Yeah..." she muttered, the sadness in her eyes starting to vanish.
"What can we do about the situation now?" he asked rhetorically, raising his hand and balling it into a fist. "It's simple, we've got to do what we think is right." Letting his hand fall back to his side, he added, "That's the only way we'll move forward."
Her smile lightened, her face quickly reverting to the casual, amiable expression he knew and loved, yet with a defined softness to the eyes and demureness to her stance that suggested it was still more than BlackRose he was talking to. "Yup. Let's do it together," she said, turning fully to Kite. "Things'll work out."
She giggled softly - it made him feel better just hearing it - and arched to her right in front of the Twin Blade. "My intuition is pretty good," she said, hints of cheer returning to her voice.
Hiroshi couldn't help but chuckle, offering a smiling emote for a visual response to complement the actual smile on his avatar.
Standing up straight, she stepped around to his side, still facing him. "Well, I'm off to go see my brother."
"At the hospital?"
"Mm-hmm," she affirmed and started to walk away, offering a light wave and a quiet, "Thanks."
He watched her leave, cherishing each footstep despite that they all sounded the same; he continued to stare even after she left his sight, the Heavy Blade stripped early from view by his computer, a cruel separation necessary to maintain a smooth framerate.
"Thank you," he whispered, "to you too."
-
From: DStollis@mailserv.net
To: Kite@theworld.com
Subj: Seijiro Tanaka
Hey man. Found out some bits and pieces about that Seijiro guy you mentioned; it seems he was working with Harold Hoerwick, creator of 'The World' - or, at least, Harold knew him. My sources have hinted that Seijiro is somehow responsible for the A.I. entity that is behind the incidents in 'The World'; his program was referred to as a 'lock', whereas Aura is a 'key' of some sort.
Most of this is speculation, but it would explain why Aura is being pursued by those phases you mentioned. Regardless, I'm going to try and track down Seijiro and see if we can't get some answers. I'll have more for you soon. In the meantime, follow up anything on your end and let me know if you need anything else, or if you find out anything.
- Dean
-
His reflection stared back at him from the monitor, dark from the lack of power. His suit was visible in the dull mirror, as was the burning cigarette in his hand. On his desk, from left to right: a single photo of a young girl in a school uniform; a small, green-shaded lamp; the base which formerly held the phone receiver in his other hand; a raised panel of wood, upon which [Francis Moritsu] was printed in slim white letters; the monitor for his personal computer, with the computer itself mounted on the floor.
"So you saw him?" a man asked through the receiver.
He took a deep breath, causing the lit end of his cigarette to flare up. "Yes," he said, releasing a puff of smoke. "It was him, there's no question."
"How did he look?"
"How do you think he looked?" Francis shot back. "He's been in a coma for months; he looked like a ghost."
"But he's alive, right?" There was a hint of concern in his voice.
"In a manner of speaking," was his reply. "And it was definitely a phase that put him there."
"You don't know that." Another hint, this one defensive.
Francis growled, his frown accenting the wrinkles on his face. "Do not presume to tell me what I do and do not know, my friend. Either Harold put it there, or someone in this company did, and I'm starting to wonder if it wasn't you."
"Don't you dare, don't you DARE try to pin this on me!" he shouted. "I've told you everything I know; besides, aren't you working with someone to put a stop to this?"
"He's just a kid." Francis took another drag from his cigarette, savoring the scent as he exhaled. "I hesitate to put all our hopes on him, without even understanding what it is we're up against."
"You said it destroyed Net Slum?"
"So it would seem," he answered. "It was... like nothing I've ever seen before. Harold couldn't possibly have meant for that thing to be."
"Frank, I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times, I don't know any more than you do."
"I'm not accusing you of anything, Tanaka, but the fact is I don't have a single idea how to handle something like this, or if it's even possible to stop it now. It was enormous, and it's getting bigger."
"You're security, this is what you do. There's got to be something. What about Delphi?"
"Don't even get me started," spat Francis. "That thing was more trouble than it was worth from day one, and we don't even know if it would work against those phases. If it were up to me, I would've ordered its deletion a year ago. Even if we wanted to, with the original programmer dead and all the data destroyed, it's impossible." He sighed. "Never thought I'd say this, but that punk from Los Angeles did us a favor."
"So what ARE you going to do?"
Another sigh, this one laced with frustration. "*Maybe*, if the player of Orca was conscious, he would know more about what we're dealing with. Since he and Balmung were at the center of the One Sin event, it's possible he somehow learned something that Harold never told us about. Something within the programming itself, a clue, maybe. If this thing really did come from Fragment, from Morganna... then perhaps the answer lies within Fragment itself."
"That sounds like a long shot."
"At best, but it's all I can think of. And there's nothing we can do now."
"I suppose not. Well, I should be going, I'm expecting company."
"Very well," said Francis. "See you later, Tanaka."
"You too, 'Lios'. Good luck."
- End of Chapter 17