.hackGODDESS
by SmkViper
Proof readers/editors: Sehet Xaui, Greybolt, Gen, Cholene, Demon Angel Tsukai

Copyright
.hackGODDESS © 2003 SmkViper
Oh My Goddess! © Kosuke Fujishima
Japanese Language Version © Kodansha Ltd.
English Language Version © AnimEigo, Pioneer, Dark Horse
Project Dot Hack © Project Hack, Bandai, TV Tokyo, Comptiq

.hackGODDESS is a fan fiction work based off the
Oh My Goddess! and Project Dot Hack universes. It
is not affiliated with Kosuke Fukishima, Kodansha Ltd.,
or Project Hack. And resemblance to any person, living
or dead, is purely coincidental.

Author's notes:
Text in are a character's thoughts.

Chapter 7: The Guardian's Secret

"I apologize for being rude," said Subaru as she kneeled down to talk to Tsukasa in the cave where the Crimson Knights were holding him. "Because I don't have nearly enough power, I made you go through a terrible ordeal, and I'm very sorry. It's just…it's just I really wanted the chance to speak with you; but now that I have the chance, I honestly don't know where to begin."

"It smells so…" began Tsukasa, looking up to Subaru. "Pleasant…"

"You can sense it?" asked Subaru, confusion in her voice.

"It's not just the smell, I feel it too," replied Tsukasa, gripping his knees tighter. "It's the pain…I can feel them."

"Even though you're inside a game?"

"I guess this is more then a game for me. Do you think I'm lying to you?"

Subaru reached out to touch him, then hesitated. "No…that's…" she pulled her hand back. "Difficult…"

Tsukasa looked back at her.

"What are you…what are you planning to do now?" asked Subaru.

"You're the one that determines that; am I right?" replied Tsukasa, a note of spite creeping into his voice. "Besides, I can't exactly get out of here anyway."

"If you are not too reckless with your behavior, then we have no reason to detain you further."

"Reckless?"

"That strange monster that fights for you."

"If you will all just leave me alone; if you will keep them from bothering me further; then I won't do anything," said Tsukasa.

"You must promise me." A hint of urgency crept into Subaru's voice.

"Same goes for you."

"I promise, I'll do everything in my power. And…just one more thing…"

"Please stop!" said Tsukasa, a little forcefully. "Don't ask me why. I really don't understand myself sometimes."

"Sorry, I just…do you happen to know anything, anything at all, about the Key of the Twilight?"

"Not at all, I've never heard of it."

"Oh, I see," replied Subaru with a slight sigh.

At that moment, footsteps echoed in the passageway behind them and Subaru turned around to see who was disobeying her order to leave them alone. The footsteps grew nearer and Sora walked into the light, his characteristic smirk on his face.

"Who gave you permission to come in here!" commanded Subaru.

"I did," replied Sora, "everyone outside should be frantically trying to reconnect about now."

Subaru readied her ax. "Not acceptable!"

Sora grinned, "Tsukasa, please; give him to me!"

"Your request is denied."

"Well I figured you would probably say that; but I'm taking him anyway," a threatening tone in his voice.

Tsukasa stood up behind Subaru. "You did say I could leave now, didn't you?"

"Yes…but…"

"So, I'll leave with him."

"That's good thinking," said Sora.

"Listen to me!" insisted Subaru, "there are other ways to get out of this place. If you leave with him there will be nothing but trouble in the future."

"Let's get out of here right now," interrupted Sora, "in any event, he's leaving here with me!"

"I'm going now," said Tsukasa.

"Tsukasa!"

"Don't come after me…" he replied as he walked towards the exit.

"You heard what he said, bye-bye!" said Sora as he took off after Tsukasa towards the exit.

A few minutes later Skuld and Kenaz walked in as Subaru was thinking about what to do next.

"Sorry to disturb you but when we didn't meet you outside we decided to come in. And there were no guards either," said Kenaz.

"Don't worry about it, I'm sure the Crimson Knights are alright, they…had a bit of a problem with a player-killer."

"Player-killer? So what happened to Tsukasa? Why isn't he here?" asked Skuld.

"He…decided to leave with the player-killer."

"But we wanted to talk to him for a few minutes."

"I'm sorry, but he…he said he didn't want anyone bothering him anymore. He agreed to curb his actions if he was left alone. And of course I promised to do what I could to ensure that he would be left alone. Then Sora showed up and took Tsukasa with him. Tsukasa…he said not to follow him."

"Sora! He's the player-killer you were talking about?" asked Kenaz.

"Yeah, have you heard of him before?"

"Yeah, I've heard of him. From the time he attacked Skuld, Urd, and Belldandy. They got the better of him if I remember correctly, though he is apparently a bit…repulsive."

"That is definitely Sora. I'm sorry I could not convince Tsukasa to stay a little longer but it sounds like he really just wants to be left alone. I ask you to do so, and not bother him. I do not want any more trouble."

"Alright," Skuld said with a disappointed sigh. "We'll try to find things out another way."

"Thank you," replied Subaru, bowing slightly.

"By the way, did you learn anything by talking to him? Besides wanting to be left alone that is," asked Kenaz.

"He mentioned that he could smell, and feel the world. That he could feel pain, even though this is only a game."

"That's odd, there is no way the game could transmit feeling or smells," said Skuld, puzzled.

"You are correct, now if you will excuse me, I need to go find the Crimson Knights and remove the wanted notice for Tsukasa. Hopefully now that we are going to leave him alone, the problems will abate," said Subaru as she got up to leave.

"Alright, we've got to come up with some other lead to pursue. We'll talk to you later," replied Kenaz.

Subaru walked back towards the entrance as Skuld and Kenaz logged out of the game.

In the temple, Skuld and Kenaz pulled off their headsets and started discussing alternatives.

"Well, if we can't go after Tsukasa any more, then we're going to have to find something else related to these events. Can you think of anything off the top of your head?" asked Skuld.

"Hmm…wait, what about that monster that was supposedly following Tsukasa around? If Tsukasa was captured then that monster may still be out there, and maybe we can track it using the program we developed to find out what created it."

"Good idea, let's check the boards and see if anyone else has seen it wandering around."

They opened up their web browser and loaded The World's bulletin boards. After a few minutes of searching they found a few posts that mentioned a strange, overpowering monster that appeared in a few areas that matched the description they had for Tsukasa's monster.

"Hmm…that's odd…" remarked Skuld.

"What is?"

"These monster sightings, they are very close together. First the monster was sighted in one area; then it was sighted again on a completely different server, just seconds later."

"Maybe it can move between servers and areas without physically moving?"

"No…I don't think that's it. See? Some of the sighting times overlap. There must be more then one out there."

"I'm not sure if that is good because we have a higher chance of meeting one, or bad because we may encounter more then we can handle. These posts do say that anyone that's stood up to the monsters has gotten hurt quickly. Though no character has died yet from encountering it, they all ran away before it could kill them," said Kenaz, a slight amount of nervousness in his voice.

"Well, there is really only one way to find out. Let's check out the places where this monster was last sighted. And bring along the tracer, hopefully we can get close enough to plant it."

"Alright…hey, we should bring Belldandy along; she would be able to heal us if we get in over our heads."

"Good idea, I'll go ask her," replied Skuld as she got up to go talk to her older sister.

Meanwhile, Kenaz got to work to modify the tracer program to work on the monster and gather as much data as it could regarding the monster's programming.

A few minutes later, Skuld and Belldandy walked back into the room and sat down.

"What are you working on?" asked Skuld.

"Just making a few tweaks to the tracer so we can get some more data from the monster. Just give me a few…done. I'm ready to go, are you guys?"

"Yes, let's go take a look," replied Skuld as they logged back into the game.

The town of Mac Anu materialized around the three adventurers as they logged in. Kenaz looked down and made sure the tracer was in his inventory before they all set off towards the rotating chaos gate. Skuld selected the first set of words on their list and they warped off to the field.

After finding nothing on the first field, they searched the second, and third. Finally they found a monster fitting the description on the fourth field on their list. It looked like a giant, golden dumbbell with a thick ring embedded in a smaller sphere in the middle of the bar between the two main spheres.

"Ok, is everyone ready? Skuld, here's the tracer. Since you're a twin blade, and therefore the fastest, you try to put it on the monster. I'll try to distract it and Belldandy, you can try to keep us healed!" ordered Kenaz.

"Roger!" Belldandy and Skuld replied.

Kenaz tossed the small tracer to Skuld and Belldandy dropped back out of range and kept one eye on the monster and another on Skuld and Kenaz's health bars on her screen. Kenaz suddenly pulled out his Katana and charged the monster, letting out a loud yell to get its attention as Skuld cautiously snuck around to what she assumed was the back of the monster. The monster rotated to face Kenaz and its golden surface started to ripple slightly as it assessed this new threat. Suddenly, Kenaz leaped upwards with his blade held close to his side, and swiped at the side of the monster while he passed it. He quickly looked back and saw the gash that his sword had made in the side of the monster flow back together and heal itself.

His reading of the monster's HP was all garbled, but showed no change; in fact, aside from turning to face Kenaz, the monster did not appear to react at all.

Kenaz's eyes widened slightly at realizing that he did little, if any, damage to the monster, but he quickly recovered and charged it again. This time, the monster's rippling surface shot out a thin strand towards Kenaz, intent of spearing the boy though the chest. Kenaz saw the attack coming a little too late and almost dodged out of the way, the thread grazing his upper arm as it went by. A hot, searing pain shot up his arm as he dropped to his knees, his hit points half gone. Belldandy quickly cast a healing spell to replenish his lost HP, but his arm still throbbed.

Damn it, I can't hurt it and for some reason I feel pain when he hits me! How am I supposed to fight a monster like this?

Kenaz slowly crawled to his feet.

"Kenaz!" yelled Skuld.

Kenaz looked up just in time to see a second strand forming on the monster's surface and he instinctively rolled to the side; the monster's second attack striking the ground where he had been standing.

It then turned slightly at Skuld's shout.

"Come back here! Your fight is with me!" yelled Kenaz as he charged it yet again.

The monster attacked a third time, but Kenaz saw it coming and sidestepped out of the way before delivering another blow to the monster. Unfortunately this wound healed up almost immediately like the first one. Still undaunted, he quickly slashed upwards as he was standing underneath the monster, dealing yet another wound, before jumping back out of range. Kenaz quickly stole a glance towards Skuld and saw her nod in his direction, indicating she was ready to plant the tracer.

After Skuld places the tracer we should leave said Belldandy mentally. We can't fight this monster right now, it's too powerful and I can't keep you two alive if it is going to hit that hard

Skuld and Kenaz both acknowledged her mentally and then Kenaz charged it again from the front while Skuld jumped towards its back, intent on planting the tracer as soon as possible.

She had just about reached it when she noticed a sudden rippling of the monster's surface on the side facing her.

"Skuld, look out!" yelled Belldandy, desperation in her voice.

Skuld's eyes widened as she watched the strand shoot out towards her chest in slow motion. She was too far committed to dodge it and could only hope that it missed, but at this close range it was unlikely. Skuld tossed the tracer towards the monster in desperation and saw it hit the monster's side and attach itself just before the strand reached her and ripped through her chest. It was just a game and the loss of her character would be no big deal. Or so she tried to tell herself as the strand tore through her armor, skin, body, and out the other side. Her eyes went glassy as intense pain blossomed in her chest. She thought she could her someone screaming, and realized that it was herself before falling mercifully unconscious underneath the floating monster.

"SKULD!" yelled Belldandy and Kenaz. Belldandy stumbled slightly.

Kenaz, being closer, ducked and rolled under the monster, grabbing Skuld's limp body as he passed and ran as fast as he could from the monster, Belldandy following him closely. Once they were far enough away, they both teleported back to Mac Anu, Kenaz still carrying Skuld's body.

Once back in the safety of the town, Kenaz laid Skuld down on the ground and looked around.

"Belldandy, I don't see Skuld's ghost anywhere! She should have a ghost walking around so we can resurrect her character, not a dead body! What's going on?!"

"I…I don't know Kenaz. I felt a sharp pain from her, and then she fell unconscious. We need to check on her in the real world!"

Kenaz and Belldandy quickly logged out and saw Skuld lying on her back on the floor, headset still on her head, and her breathing erratic. They quickly removed her headset and saw that her eyes were open and empty.

"Skuld! Answer me! Skuld!" yelled Kenaz desperately.

Urd and Keiichi quickly came running into the room.

"We heard a scream and I felt pain from Skuld…" Urd began before noticing her little sister lying on the floor. "Oh, no…" she mumbled to herself before running back towards her room to grab a potion from her collection.

Keiichi took one glance at Skuld on the floor and had a confused and worried look on his face before Belldandy told him to go take care of Shinobu for a bit so she wouldn't be worried. He quickly pulled Shinobu out of the room and quieted her questions about Skuld, saying that she would be alright.

Urd then came back into the room with a vial of red potion. She quickly knelt down next to Skuld and poured a little into her mouth before sitting back and waiting to see the result, a very worried look on her face.

Skuld suddenly coughed a few times and blinked her eyes before attempting to sit up. Belldandy forced her back down again.

"You need to rest for a bit," insisted Belldandy. "I'll carry you to your room."

Skuld decided not to protest and closed her eyes before immediately falling back asleep. Belldandy then carried her back to her room while Urd grilled Kenaz on what happened.

"I…I'm not sure Urd. We were looking for the monster that was following Tsukasa around, and after reading some of the messages on the board, we found that there may be more then one. We then went out looking for one to see if we could plant a tracer on it so we could learn about it. I was…I was supposed to distract it while Skuld planted the tracer, but it noticed her…and then…" Kenaz looked down at his feet, obviously trying to hold back tears, "it attacked her, and killed her character."

Urd looked thoughtful for a moment and then noticed a red stain on Kenaz's upper arm. "What's that? Let me see your arm," said Urd, holding her hand out.

"Huh?" Kenaz looked at his arm and noticed the red stain on his shirt sleeve. He lifted the sleeve up and hissed slightly as pain shot up his arm. A rather deep cut there was still bleeding a little.

Urd's eyes widened a bit at the sight of the wound. "Hold on a sec, I have some bandages and medicine I can use on that." She left back to her room to get the materials.

How did that…oh wait, don't tell me that's from when the monster grazed my arm! But that's impossible! Gods can't get hurt by something like that, especially if it isn't real… Kenaz thought to himself.

Urd came back with the bandages and quickly applied some sort of medication to the wound before wrapping it up.

"Care to tell me how that happened?" she asked.

"I don't know. It's in the same place where the monster grazed my arm in game, but it shouldn't be able to hurt me in the real world."

Urd looked thoughtful for a moment. "I don't know. If you were able to place the tracer it might tell us something about the monster."

"Oh, right! I think Skuld was able to plant it before…before she got hurt." Kenaz looked sad for a minute. "I'm going to go check on her, the tracer can wait," he said before heading towards Skuld's room, passing Belldandy, who was just coming out. She motioned for him to be quiet, as Skuld was sleeping.

"So, what's up with Skuld?" asked Urd, once she and Belldandy were far enough from Skuld's door to not be heard by either occupant.

"She's sleeping soundly. I took a bit of time and checked her data and somehow it got corrupted slightly while we were playing," replied Belldandy, worry evident in her face and voice.

"But that's not supposed to happen! Yggdrasil is supposed to be completely secure and no one should be able to modify a goddesses' data."

"Something did, fortunately whatever you gave her worked and she should be fine in a day or so."

"It was just a small repair program. I had to give a topical version of it to Kenaz too. Seems that he was also hurt from that battle, though I didn't think to double-check his data with Yggdrasil."

"That must have been from when the monster grazed his arm."

"That's what he said. Hopefully that tracer Skuld placed will be able to tell us more."

"Yes, hopefully. I'm going to go tell Keiichi what's up and I guess I'll have to tell Shinobu that Skuld will be sick for a bit, so she needs to be quiet. I'll see you in the morning Urd, goodnight."

"Goodnight, sister."

Kenaz quietly entered Skuld's darkened room and saw Skuld peacefully sleeping on her bed. He brushed a stray strand of her raven-black hair from her face and pulled up a chair so he could be with her.

"I'm sorry Skuld. Sorry I couldn't protect you, sorry I made you do that dangerous task. Maybe if I would have been faster, or done more damage to the monster he wouldn't have noticed you. Maybe you'd still be alright."

Kenaz hid his face in his hands, tears creeping out from under them as he quietly cried himself to sleep next to her bed.

Belldandy poked her head in a few minutes later and saw Kenaz asleep in a rather uncomfortable position on the chair. She smiled slightly and laid him down gently on the floor, covering him with a blanket before leaving the room quietly.

Early the next morning, Skuld opened her eyes to the small amount of light that had managed to sneak its way in through the blinds on her window. She still had a headache and was feeling a bit week, but it was quite a bit better then the pain she had felt last night. She then turned her head and noticed Kenaz sound asleep on the floor next to her bed, his soft snoring and slightly red eyes bringing a slight smile to her face before she turned over and fell back asleep.

Kenaz woke up an hour or so later and noticed he was in a much more comfortable position then he should have been considering how he had fallen asleep last night. He quietly sat up and left the room to grab his handheld computer so he could look at some of the monster's data. After retrieving the peripheral he quietly snuck back into Skuld's room and began going over the data that the tracer had collected.

The results were rather confusing. Apparently once he had been hit by the monster a burst of what appeared to be static jumped over the computer and corrupted a part of the system before being partitioned off by the new anti-virus program that Skuld had installed a few days ago. There was a much more severe corruption when the monster had hit Skuld which the anti-virus program had almost failed to contain. Apparently some of the corruption also got into Yggdrasil before becoming contained up there. He was surprised he had not heard from Peorth about that, she being the current system administrator. Also confusing was the fact that the tracer seemed to have recorded almost no data before being destroyed. After careful analysis of the corrupted data he noticed that it seemed to match the signature of the virus that they were supposed to be investigating in The World. His slight gasp at finding this data woke Skuld from her light sleep.

"Good morning," she said.

"Huh? Oh, good morning, I'm sorry if I woke you up, how are you feeling?"

"Much better thanks. What are you looking at?"

"Some of the data that we gathered from the monster yesterday. Apparently it is at least one source of the virus we're investigating, though I can't find out much else. The tracer was destroyed shortly after you attached it."

"I knew I should have coded it instead of you, it probably wouldn't have broken then, since my inventions always work perfectly," Skuld replied with a grin.

"Hey, you did help code it, remember?" said Kenaz, looking a little hurt.

Skuld giggled a bit before a look of pain came over her face.

"Don't…don't make me laugh like that, it hurts!" she said with a forced smile. "What happened to me?"

"I'm sorry, I don't know. Urd was the one who treated you, but it looks like from the computer records that some of your data got corrupted when you were hit, and that's what's causing your problems."

"But that's not supposed to be possible!" Skuld replied, a worried look on her face.

"Don't worry about it, you need to get some rest and recover. We can look it over together once you're feeling better, ok?"

"Alright. Oh, and Kenaz?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for watching over me last night."

"Um…you're welcome," he replied, a blush spreading over his face.

Skuld smiled before rolling over and falling back asleep. Kenaz continued to analyze the data on his handheld, frowning here and there when he came across something odd.

We're close, really close. If I can just trace this virus we might be able to find out who's making it and stop it for good

Meanwhile, in a dark and rainy field on The World, a lone female heavy blade battles a monster. The battle is over quickly with the defeat of the monster and the player kneels down next to her defeated foe. After a few moments she stands up and gates out, but a flash of lightning quickly reveals a smirk…and red tattoos on her face and body. After the glow of the teleport rings fades, the carcass of the monster twitches, glows green, and stands up again, roaring it's challenge to anyone who dares to take it on.