.HACKLife of Death, Death of Life

Disclaimer: Though I wish I owned the characters etc. of the .hack conglomeration, I must say that I do not. The plot is my own, though I received inspiration from a .hack role-play that I was in.


Chapter 5: Prisoner

Balmung returned to the root town just in time to receive an email from Reki, telling him that he had procured the character records of Tsukasa and Keika but had yet to gain access to the records of Sacred Forbidden Death. The blademaster sent a reply, telling Reki that he would meet the wavemaster in a few minutes. First, Balmung wanted to check the area out himself.

The blademaster stood next to the Chaos Gate, gazing into the swirling blue portal as he entered the command to take him to Sacred Forbidden Death. He began to warp, but a sudden force propelled him back. His screen flashed red with the message, "Protected Area!" Balmung tried yet again to enter the realm, but was denied access a second time. Puzzled, the blademaster sighed and warped instead to the special, office-type area for administrators.

In the cathedral realm, Tsukasa, determined upon her course, looked up at the statue. She closed her eyes and focused upon Aura, upon Maha and upon the World itself. After a few minutes, the cat appeared behind her. Tsukasa opened her eyes and turned to Maha. The cat bowed. Then looked to its left as a white figure materialized. The figure had long, flowing white hair, sad blue eyes, a white cloak fastened with something that looked like an infinity sign and a shimmering dress of the same color underneath. She looked at the wavemaster, saying nothing, then looked at the cat.

"Aura, Maha," began Tsukasa, meeting the eyes of each in turn. "I… I'm ready."

Cat and girl drifted forward to form an equilateral triangle with the wavemaster. Aura and Maha lifted up their hands and held them palm outward towards each other while Tsukasa held her staff out in front of her. She forced herself to breathe slowly and deeply, trying to get her racing heart to slow and her unsteady nerves to calm. An orb of light formed in each of the hands (or paws) of Aura and Maha and the orb upon Tsukasa's staff began to glow with the same light. A beam shot from each of the spheres, connecting the three beings together in an unbroken triangle. As the light connected Tsukasa, it enveloped the wavemaster. She cried out as the sensation flowed through her body. It was warm and yet cold at the same time, painful and yet it felt wonderful.

Suddenly, a chill filled the entire cathedral. Crimson liquid began to seep through the cracks in the stone, collecting in a puddle in the center of the isle, just in behind the altar. It began to form a small tornado like it had in the graveyard. Tsukasa, able to see this, though Aura and Maha could not, screamed. The whirlwind of blood then spattered across all surfaces including the cat, girl and wavemaster, statue and chains holding it. Death stood there, its eyes burning brightly with that unholy fire.

"I have caught you at last, little one, and, as an added bonus, the mouth of the World and the child of the World, Maha and Aura," it cackled.

Then, it slashed its scythe horizontally and a barrage of the black orbs appeared, flying towards the three at great speed. The spheres crashed and exploded around them. Shards flew in all directions, many slicing into Tsukasa. Those, which flew at Maha, simply passed strait through the pink cat and those sent towards Aura were diffused by her own power. However, the triangle had been broken, though the white light still surrounded Tsukasa. She screamed in utter agony as the shards cut her, some even becoming stuck in her body. Those remaining in her body began to glow with a black light, countering the white.

The wavemaster fell to her knees, moaning in pain as the blackness began to force away the white. Aura and Maha, unable to stay for fear of being destroyed, tried to take Tsukasa with them, but the shadows would not let them draw near. Therefore, cat and girl disappeared, leaving Tsukasa at the mercy of Death, hoping in the protection they had given the wavemaster. The player, having collapsed upon the cold stone floor, writhed and screamed, longing for blissful unconsciousness. However, every time she drifted near the blessed sleep, something would drag her back, so that, in the haze of pain, Tsukasa lost any sense of time, where she was or even who she was.

Death stood over her, watching the last of the light being driven away so that Tsukasa was swathed in shadows. Then, he commanded the shadows to take the shape of chains. The shackles bound Tsukasa even as she finally slipped into unconsciousness.

In the real world, a school friend of Tsukasa's knocked upon the door of her house and was let in by her father just in time to hear tortured screaming coming from the girl's room. Both friend and father ran up the stairs, but found the door to Tsukasa's room locked. They pounded upon the door, demanding that it be opened, but the received no response save the screaming. As the father slammed into the door, the screaming faded to a low moan, then ceased. Pausing a moment in the efforts to open the door, the father and friend heard a thud as the body of the girl slipped off of her desk chair onto the floor. When they finally managed to burst through the door, they saw Tsukasa laying unconscious upon the floor, the screen of her computer showing only white noise and the headset unplugged, the cord pulled out in the girl's fall.

In the World, Tsukasa lay upon the cold stone, bound by chains of shadow. Her staff lay next to her. Laughing, Death raised a hand and the wavemaster's body was lifted up to float in the air. Then, he summoned her staff to him and let it fall to the ground at his feet. He stepped upon it, shattering the entire length save for the red orb, which rolled away, down the isle. The sphere came to a stop a short distance from the door. Unnoticed by the monster, it glowed softly, its color fading to iridescent white.

Death then looked past the wavemaster at the statue of the chained girl. "Soon, Aura," he breathed. "Soon you will die like all must die."

Then, he walked past Tsukasa and approached the statue. He leapt into the air and hovered directly in front of it. Then, lifting his scythe high over his head, Death slashed across the statue, leaving a long gash in the stone. A black, residual glow remained in the slice as small cracks began to run across the stonework. Then, quite suddenly, the figure shattered, the pieces scattering about the cathedral and disappearing. The chains fell to the ground with a loud clatter, three sundered by the scythe. After a moment, the echoes faded.

Death folded his wings and landed upon the ground, his claws clicking loudly in the silence. With his power, he lifted up the chains and shrank them, then brought Tsukasa over. The chains of shadow melted into her body and, sleeping though she was, the wavemaster cried aloud in pain, squirming and thrashing about. As the manacles of shadow disappeared, the shackles formerly binding the statue wrapping themselves about the wavemaster so that she hung there, held up and restrained from movement. A chain wrapped itself about each of her wrists, holding her arms outstretched and above her head. Others bound themselves tightly about her body and legs. Once Tsukasa was in the position Death wished, the chains ceased their movement.

The monster cackled maniacally as he turned away and faced the door. Standing there were Balmung, Reki, and one other player. He was a short twin blade character wearing a red pair of pants that came just below the knee, a hat, a red short-sleeved jacket and a cream shirt underneath. He had brown boots upon his feet. Sticking out from underneath his red hat was a tangle of teal hair. Upon the twin blade's pale face were two red, double triangle designs. His green eyes were quite wide with horror and his gloved hands clutched his blades very tightly, indeed. Kite, through the entire time fighting the Wave, had never come across a creature as horrid as this, nor indeed one that created as much fear in his heart.

"It is worse than I feared," said Balmung to Reki and to Kite.

Kite nodded in grim agreement and Reki just gaped.

Death smiled, as usual, and hissed a greeting. "Welcome to the threshold of my doom! The only possible threat, our dear Tsukasa is, as you may see, my prisoner. Do you still think you can defeat me?"

There was no reply for a moment as one and all gazed past the dark figure at the limp wavemaster hanging from the chains. Kite gasped and Balmung's expression was unreadable.

Then, Reki called, "Why do you hold Tsukasa? What threat does she pose to you that no one else does?"

Death laughed. "The wavemaster is the one to whom both Morganna and Aura call. She is the only one who holds the power of both the Twilight and the Wave, though she once chose the Twilight. Neither one nor the other can defeat me unless they are one and they are one in her. Why, you might ask, can they simply choose another? The reason they cannot is because they have already given their power to this one. Furthermore, she is the only one who had a connection with both to begin with."

He laughed again at the shocked and confused expressions upon the faces of the three before him. He spoke again. "You might also wonder why I am telling you this. I shall destroy you now and it is only fitting that you should die with utter despair."


Author stuff.. yay!

Sorry for the delay on this and other fan fics by me! With this story, I had problems getting the chapters to load... Apparently fanfic doesn't like my word documents... Therefore, I was forced to resort to other means... Also, the document manager was down for a while...

Maniac: Thankyou so much for reading my story! I don't see why Tsukasa being a girl frightens people away, but I'll take your word for it...

ABOUT TSUKASA's SEX: IF you have seen the series including the final episode, you will realize that, although her character model is male and she thinks she is a guy for a decent bit, Tsukasa is actually a girl... Thus, since it has been 3 years since the series & games took place, she will obviously be a /girl/... (yes, sex is the proper term... Not gender... gender refers to words, not living things... believe me on this one...)