.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 8: Explanations
"Tsukasa?" asked Reki, tapping the other wavemaster upon the shoulder.
She started and spun about, but relaxed after a moment. "Sorry," she murmured. "There are too many voices, too many thoughts. I need to be alone…"
Then, she began to walk away, towards the side alleys of Mac Anu, where few players bothered to go. Kite, however, barred her way. Tsukasa tried to go around him, but the twin blade would not let her pass.
"Please, leave me be," she said.
"No," replied Kite. "We will go someplace where we won't be disturbed, but you really ought to tell us what you know. Then we can help you defeat whatever that thing is. If what I think is true, then this goes beyond simply the World and might start affecting those in the real world."
"It already has," replied Tsukasa, now resigned to the fact that she would not be left alone.
"I see," said Kite. "Then you could feel that thing and its attacks?"
"Yes," murmured the wavemaster quietly. "Please… Let's go somewhere else."
Reki thought a moment, then said, "I know of a place where we could go. You need special permission to enter it, but I have that permission and can get you two in as well, I think. Follow me."
He then started off across the main bridge and along a side alley. Tsukasa, sighing, and Kite followed. The alley finished in a dead end, but there was a door. Reki went up to the door an inserted a key. Turning it, he beckoned and the other two went in. Reki entered and shut the door behind him. The key had vanished. He led the way along a passage, past many closed doors, to a staircase. Then, Reki led them to the top floor and then onto the roof.
"Those doors are digital offices of sorts for administrators. One goes there to access files, send reports, contact people in real life," Reki explained once they were all upon the flat roofed building. "However, they never come to the roof."
A small parapet ran along the edge of the roof, but that was the only adornment. It wasn't a particularly tall building, but once could see a decent bit of the root town from there, though not the main road. There was a canal running behind the building and the occasional boat would drift along it, sometimes containing players, other times just the NPC boatman. Tsukasa stumbled over to one of the corners overlooking the canal and sat down, tucking her legs under her chin and wrapping her arms about them. Kite gazed at the other buildings and few little alleys that could be seen.
"Now then," began Reki. "Tsukasa? Will you please explain?"
The other wavemaster simply curled herself into a tighter ball and said nothing for a moment. Then, Tsukasa murmured, "I… don't want to talk about those things… Not now, not when there are so many voices."
"Voices?" queried Kite.
"Aura and the World itself," replied Tsukasa. "Maha and others who are a part of it."
"You hear them? They are talking to you?" asked Reki, incredulous. He had, of course, heard of the events that had happened three years previous, involving Aura and whatnot, but, not being involved in them himself, he didn't quite believe all he had heard.
"Yes," murmured the girl.
Kite and Reki exchanged looks, then turned back to the other wavemaster. "Maybe you should log out and sleep or something," said Kite, frowning. "When you're rested, you can tell us these things."
Tsukasa squeezed her eyes shut and rested her forehead upon her knees. It was a moment or two before Kite and Reki realized that she was crying. Confused, they again exchanged muddled looks before Kite went over to her and sat down next to the girl. Reki came over and sat on the other side of her.
"What's wrong?" the twin blade asked, genuinely worried.
The girl muttered something, but the other two couldn't make it out.
"What?"
"Leave me alone," said Tsukasa, louder so that they could hear.
"Not until you either log out or tell us what's the matter," replied Kite.
Tsukasa lifted her head up, wiping the tears away with her sleeve. The other two players were slightly surprised that the tears were visible upon her avatar. Normally, things such as tears did not show up upon the character models.
"Tsukasa?" prompted Reki.
"I…" she began, brokenly. "I can't log out… I…"
Kite blinked in surprise. "What?" he exclaimed. "Why?"
"In order for me to fight against Death, I… I had to let my entire consciousness dwell in the game," Tsukasa murmured. "But, for me, it isn't game… I wish it was, but…"
The wavemaster fell silent, choking back more tears.
"Didn't something like this happen to you before?' asked Reki, consulting the small book he carried with himself. "You were logged in for over two weeks strait."
Tsukasa nodded. "Three years ago."
"Yes," said Reki, reading something. "That would have made you the first person to fall into a coma as a result of this game. But the player records of the others are different. They did not roam around the World as you did."
"I wasn't data drained, if that's what you mean," mumbled Tsukasa.
All were silent a moment, then Kite asked, "How did you manage to log out last time?"
"Aura awoke and forced Morganna to let me go," she said.
"What I don't get," commented Reki. "Is why you fell into a coma in the first place. Or, for that matter, why you are in a coma now, if what you say is true."
"Now, I must be connected with the World to channel the energies to defeat that thing," answered Tsukasa, finally able to cease her tears. "Last time… No, I don't want to talk about it now."
"Now can you tell us what exactly that Halloween nightmare is?" asked Kite.
"It is Death," replied Tsukasa. "Who created him and for what purpose other than destruction, I do not know. However, I do know that his power is immense and his defense strong. However, he is not invincible."
"I see," murmured Kite, thoughtfully. "How can he be defeated?"
"I…" sighed Tsukasa. "I really do not know…"
She seemed about to say more, but was interrupted by a light chime and the appearance of a little blue envelope over her head. The wavemaster looked up and a white sheet materialized in her hand. The blue envelope disappeared and her gray eyes turned back down, scanning over the message. Her eyes widened. Then Tsukasa squeezed them shut and clenched her fist around the paper. She then flung the ball of paper away from herself with a cry. It fizzled into data and disappeared.
"Who was that from?" asked Reki as he stood up and peered over the edge of the building as the paper disappeared. "And what did it say that's so upsetting?"
Tsukasa ignored the query and stood up. She turned to walk towards the door back into the building, but Reki grabbed her shoulder. Though she tried to shake him off, he held firm. Kite, having just received a flash mail of his own, stood up, but didn't immediately turn to the two wavemasters.
"Let me go!" Tsukasa hissed.
"No," replied Reki.
"Please," murmured the girl. "I need to go. Let me."
"If you need to go somewhere, then I'll let you, but I'm not going to let you go alone," said Reki. "Look, you aren't alone in the struggle and, whether you like it or not, you need to let us help you."
Tsukasa sighed and looked backwards at the other, her eyes meeting his warm moss green ones. She nodded and muttered something that might have been 'I'm sorry. Thank you,' but might have been something else entirely. Reki smiled.
"Hey," called Kite, looking up from his flash mail. "Blackrose just mailed me, asking me to meet her at the chaos gate in Dun Loireag. She says that she was helping a newbie out, but she met a strange player lurking in Rejecting Oblivious Wavemaster. She wants to talk. I'm going to go there now. What was your mail about, Tsukasa?"
The wavemaster's eyes widened. "That's where I was going," she gasped.
"Then we can go there together," said Kite.
Tsukasa nodded vaguely as did Reki, who was looking at something in his book. Balmung's assistant then looked up and said, "Let's go, then."
A few minutes later, three sets of golden hoops appeared at the chaos gate in Dun Loireag, the mountain village. Blackrose, seated upon a nearby rock, looked up and waved as she saw that one of them was her twin blade friend. The other two were wavemasters who she didn't recognize. One held a book, the other nothing. Blackrose wondered why they had no staves, but did not utter the question, instead running over to Kite. Both the twin and heavy blade smiled at each other and Blackrose seemed about to give Kite a hug, but stopped herself.
"Uh, you got my message?" she asked.
Kite nodded. "Yes. What did that player you mentioned look like? Did you get his user name?"
"I think it was Demon Child, but I'm not sure. His character design was unusual because it had wings like Balmung's, but black and his armor was all black with red jewels," said Blackrose. She glanced over Kite's shoulder at the two wavemasters and was surprised to see one of them wide-eyed and seemingly fearful or at least greatly surprised. "Uh… What's the matter? Who are you two, anyway?"
"Oh," exclaimed Kite. "Sorry! I forgot to introduce you. This is Reki and this is Tsukasa. And what is the matter, Tsukasa?"
Tsukasa was rather pale and trembling. She shook her head and accessed the gate, calling out the field name, "Rejecting Oblivious Wavemaster."
Reki murmured, "Drat." Then he warped to the same field.
Blackrose and Kite exchanged looks, then the heavy blade said, "You had better tell me what's going on!"
Author stuff:
Kitsunia: gives you a random assortment of .hack dolls, ranging from Tsukasa to Kite to Balmung to Bear to Ouka, etc. The only one that seems not to be there is Sora... Dunno why. Those are for being such a nice awesome reviewer person and reading every chapter! School starts for me on Sept the first and I shall be rather busy from then on and thus shall likely be much slower at coming up with chapters for this fanfic...
Actually, this is the only fanfic I am actively working on... Sorry to those of you who like my other stuff, but I just can't seem to find the inspiration for the next chapters in each of those... sigh Oh well...
Random ranting question thingy: Why must we always put disclaimers? Obviously we aren't meaning to infringe upon the copyright of any of the companies that produce the anime/movies/books/games...
No previews this week, despite the fact that I am almost done with the next chapter... : )
dragon
