.Hack//Relapse
A .Hack fanfiction by Renfro Calhoun
Disclaimer: Project .Hack and attached characters/concepts do not belong to me.
Notes: Takes place during Outbreak. Parentheses indicate thoughts, brackets are for text. I would like to take this time to thank all you wonderful readers, and remind you that comments and criticism are always welcome. I've grown quite fond of the .Hack universe, and my only lasting hope is to do it justice via the wonderful medium of fanfiction. Yeah, yeah, I know, those two tend to be mutually exclusive, but not always. I kid 'cause I love.
Anywho, read on and enjoy!
Chapter 19 - Side Project
-------------------------
Kite analyzed the NPC shopkeeper with a practiced gaze: physically, he was no different from the others occupying the sales booths of Dun Loireag - heavyset, thick mustache, green vest and matching cap, olive pants, burlap sack hanging loosely from a belt; despite his common appearance he bore a commanding air, as if he were used to giving orders and having others follow them.
"I understand you were discussing Seijiro Tanaka with that Wavemaster," said Lios, his firm voice replacing that of the usual jovial tone of the shopkeeper he now controlled. "Can I correctly assume that Stolls is investigating him?"
"Yeah," said Kite, curiously watching Lios' improvised avatar for any sign of what to expect.
"Hmm..."
Taking a guess, Kite asked, "Do you know him?"
He nodded. "Like he said, Seijiro works for us; he's one of the people who updated Fragment to work in The World." A pause, long enough for a small sigh. "And he... tried to configure the AI from Fragment to work with this game as well."
"So it's true," the Twin Blade muttered. "That's what's causing all these problems."
"So it would seem," answered Lios, crossing his muscular arms over his chest. "And... as you may have guessed, we've yet to develop an effective counter to this... 'Morganna'. We're not even entirely sure it's Morganna who has done all this, although that is what we believe."
Kite closed his eyes for a moment, feeling a dull throbbing in his skull; the stress of a mind given more information than it could compute at once, already wearied by the long night.
"We know it has to do with Fragment," he continued, "but we're hard pressed to come up with explanations. This is where you come in."
"What do you mean?"
"Do you know of the One Sin event?" Not waiting for a reply, he explained. "The invincible monster, defeated by Balmung and your friend Orca, the reason why they are called the Descendents of Fianna."
"A little," Kite hesitantly answered. "Yasu... I mean, Orca never told me much about it. Just that he was in some rare event in The World."
"We called it an event." Lios scoffed, looking away. "A disaster is more like it. We never intended for that creature to wreak such havoc; it *was* originally designed as a quest monster, but some sort of virus corrupted it, made it virtually unstoppable. We now believe that whatever is behind the current situation caused this as well, sort of a... test of its power, perhaps."
"So you're saying that the virus came from Fragment?"
"It's possible, and if we can find the origin, we may be able to learn more about it. There's too many fields for even us to scan through; as you know, we did not program Fragment, only built upon it with our own software, and without Harold we wouldn't know what to look for, even if we could search every field." His eyes shifted back to Kite. "That is where you come in."
"What can I do?" he asked. "Are you saying I should try to find this source?"
"I don't think you'll have to. I think Orca may have found the source when he and Balmung discovered that monster. Balmung claims to have cleared out his archives, and player activity isn't usually recorded unless it's related to a quest, or they've been reported."
Kite noted the subtle switch from 'we' to 'I'. "So... you want me to..."
Lios interrupted him. "It's important that neither of us suggests this aloud."
The boy blinked, peering up at the large shopkeeper-turned-administrator. "Lios?"
His head turned, scanning the surrounding area, watching as several players ran back and forth, attending to their various tasks. "My eyes aren't the only ones watching this game," he said in a low voice.
It took mere seconds for Kite to catch on. He nodded slowly. "I understand."
"Good," he said, sounding almost pleased. "If you find anything, return to this vendor. And bring friends." At this, the life was drained from the NPC body, its eyes and body returning to their usual position and posture, staring blankly at the nearest player, which became a female Long Arm as she dashed up to the counter and opened her trading menu.
(I'm sure I'll need them,) thought the Twin Blade, turning away from the merchant and planning his next move.
-
Lines of sidewalk rolled beneath his feet, white sneakers clapping quietly against the concrete carrying him to Yasuhiko's house. His school uniform was sprinkled with sweat, thanks to the persistent humidity, and the bookbag slung over his back wasn't any less of an encumberance; still he pressed on, knowing that there was no better time than now, when his friend's parents were both at work, and his own mother not expecting him home for another fifteen minutes.
Before long, Hiroshi found himself at the Kugara residence; red-bricked and plain, windows closed and blinds up, fronted by a small lawn and a flowerbed, no cars in the driveway or even nearby, garage closed. Stone slabs formed a small footpath to the backyard, which he followed.
The backyard was more of the same, plus an old, yet sturdy white trellis that led up to a second-story window. Hiroshi recalled more than one occasion where Yasuhiko and he had climbed the wooden fixture, successfully infiltrating the house through the bedroom window. At any other time, he might have laughed at the memory.
Now, he felt closer to tears than smiles.
Taking a deep breath, he approached the trellis and cautiously gripped it with both hands, giving it a good shake; despite its age, the wood felt firm and tough under his hands, and it remained deeply rooted in the soil, to stubborn to move. Confident, he pulled one shoulder out of the straps of his backpack, then the other, and then set it down next to his feet.
"Hey, what are you doing there?!"
A chill shot through Hiro, and he sucked in a small gasp through his teeth; slowly his head turned in the direction of the speaker, a short, middle-aged woman wearing a loose white t-shirt and a pair of jeans, both covered by a soft blue robe.
Feeling simultaneously relieved and embarassed, he blushed and stepped away from the trellis. "Sorry, Mrs. Kugara, it's just me, Hiroshi."
She blinked, squinted through the pair of glasses perched precariously on her nose. "Hiro? Oh, I'm sorry! I thought you were someone trying to break in! Didn't I warn you about coming in through the window?"
Recovering his pack, Hiro approached his friend's mother, who stood before the now-open sliding glass door that separated the patio from the inside of the house. "Yes, I'm sorry," he urged, "but I didn't think anybody was home." Thinking quickly, he added, "I wanted to get something I left in Yasu's room."
"Ohh. Well, there's no need to break your neck trying to climb that old thing! Please, come in."
Hiroshi obediently followed as she entered the house, stepping into the kitchen. "How come you're home so early?"
"I wasn't feeling too well, I called in sick today." As if to accent this, she picked up a glass from the kitchen table, next to which sat two small, red pills. She picked one up and popped it into her mouth, following up with a mouthful of water, and gulped the mixture down loudly.
"Are you okay?" he asked, concerned.
"I'll be fine, it was just a fever," she assured him. "It was worse earlier."
He nodded, and turned to the archway leading to the stairs. "Well, I'll only take a minute; Yasu borrowed this thing of mine and I kind of wanted to get it back." He hoped that would suffice for an explanation.
It did. "All right. Go on ahead, then, I'll be downstairs if you need anything."
Hiroshi took a step forward, but stopped when Mrs. Kugara spoke again. "Hiroshi?"
He glanced over at her, and caught a good look at her face for the first time; she bore a motherly look, one of concern and sadness, and he noticed her short hair was slightly mussed, as if she had not taken the time to care for it in the morning, instead letting gravity and time do the work for her. There was a tired quality to her eyes, highlighted by the frame of her glasses, and her lips were curled into a weak smile.
"Thank you for... spending time with Yasuhiko. He needs friends like you... now more than ever." Her words were labored, slowed by her sickness and put further in peril by her already weakened constitution. "I'm sure he would be grateful to know you're there."
He forced a smile, remembering how Yasu looked to his eyes; he could only imagine how she and her husband were handling it, and from the looks of her, it wasn't very well.
"I just know he'd be there for me," he replied truthfully. "I want to do what I can to help."
"I know you do," she said in a soft voice. "Well... again, thank you. Don't let me keep you, I'm sure your mother will be wondering where you are soon."
"Thanks. I won't be long." He turned away, strolling up the stairs into the second floor hallway, and up to the closed door leading to Yasuhiko's room. He gave the knob a turn and stepped through.
The first thing that struck him was a light musky scent, lingering evidence that its sole inhabitant was long gone; the bed lay undisturbed, sheets neatly tucked beneath the mattress and pillow near the headboard, fluffed and pristine; the drawers and closet were closed; books lined a tall shelf along one of the walls, covered in a fine layer of dust.
His target sat on a desk in the corner: Yasuhiko's PC, also dusty from inactivity. He pushed the power button for the computer, followed by the monitor; gently, he wheeled out the swivel chair and sat down before the machine as it powered up.
(There's got to be something here. Come on, Yasu... give me a clue, a field, a name, anything. I need to know what happened.)
Feeling the burden of his limited time, he opened the computer files and scanned the segment of his hard drive containing the software for 'The World'. A folder marked 'logs' helpfully pointed him in the right direction, but he hit a dead stop when he found over two dozen text documents in that folder, all marked with numbers that could have been dates.
(No way I can go through all of these in time... I'll have to copy them.) Hiroshi opened the computer's mail client and signed on as a guest, then collapsed the copied documents into one large .zip file and mailed it to himself.
Before he could close either the client or the folder, he noticed one document that wasn't titled with numbers, dated several months ago. He opened it and began reading its contents.
[==mailme.txt==
(Send ASAP!)
Balmung,
Found something weird on Lambda server. Went to this dungeon where the graphics were all screwed up, but I didn't get to explore it. I don't think it was just my computer, either. I think it might be related to that monster everyone's talking about. Wanna check it out? Drop me a line if you're interested.
Lambda: Capricious Astigmatic Pilgrimage
- Orca]
-
"So what was it?"
His back to the railing, Balmung shook his head, loose feathers on his wings shivering from a stray gust of wind. "I don't know, we never actually went. I guess it was a false lead, because we found the monster in another field."
"I see. But did you find out how it got there?" asked Kite.
The Blademaster frowned. "No, that's the confusing part. It kept moving around fields, almost at will; like with these phases, actually, although I don't think anyone was actually hurt by it."
"Hmm. Lios said that the game was built over Fragment, and that the virus had to have come from there." He gestured with his left hand, adding emphasis to the word 'there'. "So whatever's infecting The World came from Fragment."
"I agree," said Balmung, "but I don't know what Orca stumbled onto with that field. Did you find anything else from his computer?"
Kite sighed, hanging his head. "Not really... the files showed a lot of fields and login times, but nothing about what actually happened in them."
"So what you're saying is, it's this or nothing."
The Twin Blade nodded. "Mm-hmm."
"Well, then maybe we should check it out. Are we going now?"
"Not yet; I just messaged BlackRose, she'll be here soon."
Balmung smirked, but Kite noticed his eyes twitch. "BlackRose, huh?"
"I'd never hear the end of it if I didn't invite her," he said with a chuckle and a smiling emote.
The winged Blademaster snorted a laugh, and turned away, facing down the main avenue of the cultural city. "I'm sure you wouldn't," he remarked under his breath.
Kite felt no need to mention that he wanted to invite her anyway.
- End of Chapter 19
A .Hack fanfiction by Renfro Calhoun
Disclaimer: Project .Hack and attached characters/concepts do not belong to me.
Notes: Takes place during Outbreak. Parentheses indicate thoughts, brackets are for text. I would like to take this time to thank all you wonderful readers, and remind you that comments and criticism are always welcome. I've grown quite fond of the .Hack universe, and my only lasting hope is to do it justice via the wonderful medium of fanfiction. Yeah, yeah, I know, those two tend to be mutually exclusive, but not always. I kid 'cause I love.
Anywho, read on and enjoy!
Chapter 19 - Side Project
-------------------------
Kite analyzed the NPC shopkeeper with a practiced gaze: physically, he was no different from the others occupying the sales booths of Dun Loireag - heavyset, thick mustache, green vest and matching cap, olive pants, burlap sack hanging loosely from a belt; despite his common appearance he bore a commanding air, as if he were used to giving orders and having others follow them.
"I understand you were discussing Seijiro Tanaka with that Wavemaster," said Lios, his firm voice replacing that of the usual jovial tone of the shopkeeper he now controlled. "Can I correctly assume that Stolls is investigating him?"
"Yeah," said Kite, curiously watching Lios' improvised avatar for any sign of what to expect.
"Hmm..."
Taking a guess, Kite asked, "Do you know him?"
He nodded. "Like he said, Seijiro works for us; he's one of the people who updated Fragment to work in The World." A pause, long enough for a small sigh. "And he... tried to configure the AI from Fragment to work with this game as well."
"So it's true," the Twin Blade muttered. "That's what's causing all these problems."
"So it would seem," answered Lios, crossing his muscular arms over his chest. "And... as you may have guessed, we've yet to develop an effective counter to this... 'Morganna'. We're not even entirely sure it's Morganna who has done all this, although that is what we believe."
Kite closed his eyes for a moment, feeling a dull throbbing in his skull; the stress of a mind given more information than it could compute at once, already wearied by the long night.
"We know it has to do with Fragment," he continued, "but we're hard pressed to come up with explanations. This is where you come in."
"What do you mean?"
"Do you know of the One Sin event?" Not waiting for a reply, he explained. "The invincible monster, defeated by Balmung and your friend Orca, the reason why they are called the Descendents of Fianna."
"A little," Kite hesitantly answered. "Yasu... I mean, Orca never told me much about it. Just that he was in some rare event in The World."
"We called it an event." Lios scoffed, looking away. "A disaster is more like it. We never intended for that creature to wreak such havoc; it *was* originally designed as a quest monster, but some sort of virus corrupted it, made it virtually unstoppable. We now believe that whatever is behind the current situation caused this as well, sort of a... test of its power, perhaps."
"So you're saying that the virus came from Fragment?"
"It's possible, and if we can find the origin, we may be able to learn more about it. There's too many fields for even us to scan through; as you know, we did not program Fragment, only built upon it with our own software, and without Harold we wouldn't know what to look for, even if we could search every field." His eyes shifted back to Kite. "That is where you come in."
"What can I do?" he asked. "Are you saying I should try to find this source?"
"I don't think you'll have to. I think Orca may have found the source when he and Balmung discovered that monster. Balmung claims to have cleared out his archives, and player activity isn't usually recorded unless it's related to a quest, or they've been reported."
Kite noted the subtle switch from 'we' to 'I'. "So... you want me to..."
Lios interrupted him. "It's important that neither of us suggests this aloud."
The boy blinked, peering up at the large shopkeeper-turned-administrator. "Lios?"
His head turned, scanning the surrounding area, watching as several players ran back and forth, attending to their various tasks. "My eyes aren't the only ones watching this game," he said in a low voice.
It took mere seconds for Kite to catch on. He nodded slowly. "I understand."
"Good," he said, sounding almost pleased. "If you find anything, return to this vendor. And bring friends." At this, the life was drained from the NPC body, its eyes and body returning to their usual position and posture, staring blankly at the nearest player, which became a female Long Arm as she dashed up to the counter and opened her trading menu.
(I'm sure I'll need them,) thought the Twin Blade, turning away from the merchant and planning his next move.
-
Lines of sidewalk rolled beneath his feet, white sneakers clapping quietly against the concrete carrying him to Yasuhiko's house. His school uniform was sprinkled with sweat, thanks to the persistent humidity, and the bookbag slung over his back wasn't any less of an encumberance; still he pressed on, knowing that there was no better time than now, when his friend's parents were both at work, and his own mother not expecting him home for another fifteen minutes.
Before long, Hiroshi found himself at the Kugara residence; red-bricked and plain, windows closed and blinds up, fronted by a small lawn and a flowerbed, no cars in the driveway or even nearby, garage closed. Stone slabs formed a small footpath to the backyard, which he followed.
The backyard was more of the same, plus an old, yet sturdy white trellis that led up to a second-story window. Hiroshi recalled more than one occasion where Yasuhiko and he had climbed the wooden fixture, successfully infiltrating the house through the bedroom window. At any other time, he might have laughed at the memory.
Now, he felt closer to tears than smiles.
Taking a deep breath, he approached the trellis and cautiously gripped it with both hands, giving it a good shake; despite its age, the wood felt firm and tough under his hands, and it remained deeply rooted in the soil, to stubborn to move. Confident, he pulled one shoulder out of the straps of his backpack, then the other, and then set it down next to his feet.
"Hey, what are you doing there?!"
A chill shot through Hiro, and he sucked in a small gasp through his teeth; slowly his head turned in the direction of the speaker, a short, middle-aged woman wearing a loose white t-shirt and a pair of jeans, both covered by a soft blue robe.
Feeling simultaneously relieved and embarassed, he blushed and stepped away from the trellis. "Sorry, Mrs. Kugara, it's just me, Hiroshi."
She blinked, squinted through the pair of glasses perched precariously on her nose. "Hiro? Oh, I'm sorry! I thought you were someone trying to break in! Didn't I warn you about coming in through the window?"
Recovering his pack, Hiro approached his friend's mother, who stood before the now-open sliding glass door that separated the patio from the inside of the house. "Yes, I'm sorry," he urged, "but I didn't think anybody was home." Thinking quickly, he added, "I wanted to get something I left in Yasu's room."
"Ohh. Well, there's no need to break your neck trying to climb that old thing! Please, come in."
Hiroshi obediently followed as she entered the house, stepping into the kitchen. "How come you're home so early?"
"I wasn't feeling too well, I called in sick today." As if to accent this, she picked up a glass from the kitchen table, next to which sat two small, red pills. She picked one up and popped it into her mouth, following up with a mouthful of water, and gulped the mixture down loudly.
"Are you okay?" he asked, concerned.
"I'll be fine, it was just a fever," she assured him. "It was worse earlier."
He nodded, and turned to the archway leading to the stairs. "Well, I'll only take a minute; Yasu borrowed this thing of mine and I kind of wanted to get it back." He hoped that would suffice for an explanation.
It did. "All right. Go on ahead, then, I'll be downstairs if you need anything."
Hiroshi took a step forward, but stopped when Mrs. Kugara spoke again. "Hiroshi?"
He glanced over at her, and caught a good look at her face for the first time; she bore a motherly look, one of concern and sadness, and he noticed her short hair was slightly mussed, as if she had not taken the time to care for it in the morning, instead letting gravity and time do the work for her. There was a tired quality to her eyes, highlighted by the frame of her glasses, and her lips were curled into a weak smile.
"Thank you for... spending time with Yasuhiko. He needs friends like you... now more than ever." Her words were labored, slowed by her sickness and put further in peril by her already weakened constitution. "I'm sure he would be grateful to know you're there."
He forced a smile, remembering how Yasu looked to his eyes; he could only imagine how she and her husband were handling it, and from the looks of her, it wasn't very well.
"I just know he'd be there for me," he replied truthfully. "I want to do what I can to help."
"I know you do," she said in a soft voice. "Well... again, thank you. Don't let me keep you, I'm sure your mother will be wondering where you are soon."
"Thanks. I won't be long." He turned away, strolling up the stairs into the second floor hallway, and up to the closed door leading to Yasuhiko's room. He gave the knob a turn and stepped through.
The first thing that struck him was a light musky scent, lingering evidence that its sole inhabitant was long gone; the bed lay undisturbed, sheets neatly tucked beneath the mattress and pillow near the headboard, fluffed and pristine; the drawers and closet were closed; books lined a tall shelf along one of the walls, covered in a fine layer of dust.
His target sat on a desk in the corner: Yasuhiko's PC, also dusty from inactivity. He pushed the power button for the computer, followed by the monitor; gently, he wheeled out the swivel chair and sat down before the machine as it powered up.
(There's got to be something here. Come on, Yasu... give me a clue, a field, a name, anything. I need to know what happened.)
Feeling the burden of his limited time, he opened the computer files and scanned the segment of his hard drive containing the software for 'The World'. A folder marked 'logs' helpfully pointed him in the right direction, but he hit a dead stop when he found over two dozen text documents in that folder, all marked with numbers that could have been dates.
(No way I can go through all of these in time... I'll have to copy them.) Hiroshi opened the computer's mail client and signed on as a guest, then collapsed the copied documents into one large .zip file and mailed it to himself.
Before he could close either the client or the folder, he noticed one document that wasn't titled with numbers, dated several months ago. He opened it and began reading its contents.
[==mailme.txt==
(Send ASAP!)
Balmung,
Found something weird on Lambda server. Went to this dungeon where the graphics were all screwed up, but I didn't get to explore it. I don't think it was just my computer, either. I think it might be related to that monster everyone's talking about. Wanna check it out? Drop me a line if you're interested.
Lambda: Capricious Astigmatic Pilgrimage
- Orca]
-
"So what was it?"
His back to the railing, Balmung shook his head, loose feathers on his wings shivering from a stray gust of wind. "I don't know, we never actually went. I guess it was a false lead, because we found the monster in another field."
"I see. But did you find out how it got there?" asked Kite.
The Blademaster frowned. "No, that's the confusing part. It kept moving around fields, almost at will; like with these phases, actually, although I don't think anyone was actually hurt by it."
"Hmm. Lios said that the game was built over Fragment, and that the virus had to have come from there." He gestured with his left hand, adding emphasis to the word 'there'. "So whatever's infecting The World came from Fragment."
"I agree," said Balmung, "but I don't know what Orca stumbled onto with that field. Did you find anything else from his computer?"
Kite sighed, hanging his head. "Not really... the files showed a lot of fields and login times, but nothing about what actually happened in them."
"So what you're saying is, it's this or nothing."
The Twin Blade nodded. "Mm-hmm."
"Well, then maybe we should check it out. Are we going now?"
"Not yet; I just messaged BlackRose, she'll be here soon."
Balmung smirked, but Kite noticed his eyes twitch. "BlackRose, huh?"
"I'd never hear the end of it if I didn't invite her," he said with a chuckle and a smiling emote.
The winged Blademaster snorted a laugh, and turned away, facing down the main avenue of the cultural city. "I'm sure you wouldn't," he remarked under his breath.
Kite felt no need to mention that he wanted to invite her anyway.
- End of Chapter 19