Fragments of a Shattered Mirror
Disclaimering: I own Bandai & all the .hack enterprise.. In my dreams, that is... Look, I don't technically own any more than copies of the games, manga & some of the anime (as in Liminality & 2 volumes of Dusk)... But the plot and some facets of the characters as I have chosen to portray them belong to my imagination..
Review would be nice once you've read this. If you truly hate it, tell me why... But don't expect me to fix everything that bothers you. Suggestions are always welcome, if not always followed.
Chapter 8
A/N I feel like doing a little more with Elk and Mia, so I'll leave ya hangin' with Amaya's situation… muaha
The World – Elk, Mia
The shy wavemaster had just logged on when Mia appeared at the chaos gate. A smile lit up his face and he waved vigorously to the purple cat. The cat waved back and sauntered over to her friend.
"Mia! I thought about you all day. I barely made it through the day," said Elk. "I hate school… (he sighed) I wish I could stay here all day with you."
"Hello Elk," said Mia, her tail twitching, her ears perked forward and a smile on her face as well. "I missed you, too. Why don't you like school? Isn't an edu… education supposed to be a good thing?"
Elk sighed again, poking at the ground with the end of his staff. "I like the education… I love learning, but it's everything else at school… the other kids, especially."
"Hmm… What do they do?"
"It's just three of them and they attack me… beat me up," said the boy, walking alongside Mia through the city of Mac Anu. "The rest just… don't do anything…"
Mia put a hand on Elk's shoulder. "Hey," she said. "Don't think about them now. Let's go have fun somewhere. You said that we were going to create new memories!"
"All right," replied the wavemaster, looking up at his friend. "I know the perfect place!"
The two returned the chaos gate and warped away. They reappeared in a pleasant, sunny, grassy field, dotted with lovely white flowers. Rolling hills and windmills filled the horizon, casting little if any shadow for the sun was high overhead. Elk gazed around, delight in his eyes for the lack of raw data patches or static.
"It's fixed," he murmured, a grin slowly spreading across his lips.
"It's beautiful… and somehow… so familiar," said Mia, looking about in joyful wonder.
"We used to come here a lot," said Elk, turning his eyes to the purple feline.
"We did?"
"Mmmhmm… This was our favorite place to be together because it was so beautiful and because it was where we… first met," explained the wavemaster, still gazing at Mia. "In the bottom of the dungeon… I was alone… and fighting this monster… I would have lost, but then you came along and helped me. Then we went to the Ghott statue and… uh… In the chest was a piece of aromatic grass. Like this one."
The boy then produced the seemingly useless item from his inventory and held it out to Mia. It looked like three elongated oval blades with pointed tips, joined at the base by a thin sheathe. They were a pleasant medium green in color, accentuated by a few lighter or darker stripes, barely perceptible at first glance. A faint, but pleasing scent wafted from the leaves. Mia looked down at them and, for some unknown reason, tears welled up in her golden eyes, though a smile turned the corner of her lips.
"You keep it, Elk… Keep it for me… Thank you," she whispered, before turning away.
Elk put the grass away and took a step towards Mia. He hesitated a few seconds, then put his hand on her shoulder. With a sob, Mia turned to him, burying her face in Elk's shoulder. Bewildered by the feminine outburst of emotion, Elk wasn't sure what to do, but he tried the best he could, wrapping his arms around the feline, regardless of the staff he held in one hand. Mia nuzzled further into the wavemaster's shoulder, comforted by him.
Rubbing her back, Elk murmured, "It's OK, Mia."
They stood like that for a while, Mia's own arms winding around Elk as well. Then, the cat tilted her head up from his shoulder, her golden, tear-soaked eyes gazing into Elk's crimson.
"Elk," she said, then, closing her eyelids, leaned forward and kissed him upon the lips.
Elk's own eyes opened quite wide in surprise and his staff slipped from his fingers. But he returned the kiss, two thoughts passing through his mind. The first was he loved Mia and wished that the kiss wouldn't end and the other being that it was a little odd to be kissing a cat, but that latter thought quickly vanished in a bubble of bliss.
Mia felt warm and fuzzy inside and out, relishing the comforting warmth of Elk's body as she pressed against him. She savored the kiss, not bothering to think about the problems of loving one who existed in two worlds while she existed only in one. For the moment, she didn't care about who and what she was, thinking only of how much she wanted to be with this wavemaster forever, and whether or not he felt the same way. She was sure he did.
And then they drew their lips apart, each opening their eyes and gazing at each other once more.
"I love you," said Mia, her voice low and purring.
"And I love you, Mia," said Elk. Then, quite to his own surprise, the wavemaster leaned his head forward and gave a kiss to Mia, again.
Again, the thought of how odd it was to kiss a cat trickled through his mind, but the exact physics of this process need not be laid out in detail. Suffice it to say that they managed. This time, yet another thought was in Elk's mind, too. He wished that he was really within the game, not an outsider, unable to feel, to really touch the World. The boy could have cared less about being able to do anything save for actually be with Mia as in be truly standing there, twined in an embrace with her, rather than only able to watch his avatar do it for him. And what was an avatar, anyway? Was it not a puppet manipulated by the user? Alas for puppets when it should really be him there. Who cares about a promising career in whatever he decided to go into? Who cares about school and his studies? When he could be with Mia… (ROMEO AND JULIET!! Er… sort of, anyway)
But now we leave these unfortunate lovers in peace, at least for the moment, and journey to the Yamamoto home in the real world.
Real World – Tsukasa / Amaya
First there was a blurry picture, taken, no doubt, from the video feed of one of the security cameras. The cameras weren't the best. In fact, they were far from the best, especially in surveillance technology, but they didn't need to be. The picture depicted a man dressed in a shabby suit in mid leap as an equally blurry subway train came speeding along. After the picture came the article…
'Man jumps in front of subway committing suicide
reporter: Miyamoto Arata
This morning, a man whose identity has yet to be confirmed leapt in front of the 9:15 subway from Kyoto to Tokyo. According to eyewitnesses, he seemed tired and depressed. One woman claimed that right before he leapt in front of the oncoming train, the suicide victim shouted, "Forgive me Kai! Forgive me Amaya!" However, the claim is dubious considering that none of the others in the station reported hearing anything but a single incoherent yell as he leapt.'
Amaya didn't bother to read the rest, but simply stared at the picture, glowing upon her computer screen. It was her father, no doubt about that…
Tears trickled from her eyes, not so much in morning for her father, as in a response everything that had happened. It wasn't that Amaya didn't love her father… On the contrary, she remembered him before her mother had died, before the problems and the girl still clung to those memories of the pair happily together. She'd loved the man her father had been. Maybe that was why she'd never called the cops, or why she'd always avoided getting any help… Maybe it was because she thought he would get over his grief. She had been so naïve. Just like this whole day.
Amaya /knew/ what her father was going to do in her gut. She knew through and beyond certain sure that the note was, in a way, a suicide note and she had known since she read it. Yet, she had deluded herself, forcing herself to be foolishly optimistic. The tears now overwhelmed her and, full of anger, hate, and a bitter grief, she put her head in her arms on the desk.
It was in just this position that, several sob-filled minutes later, a light chime from her computer's speakers announced that Amaya now had new mail. Sniffling and reaching for a tissue, she lifted her head and blinked at the screen. Her glasses rested on the table where her head had been and so it was rather difficult to see anything other than a glowing, box-shaped blur. Wiping her eyes and blowing her nose, though the tears still came, she replaced the glasses. Then, with a cry of disgust, she placed the curser over the close button and slammed her finger hard upon the left mouse button. And the news story vanished, leaving only the Altimit OS desktop.
She then clicked upon the 'email' icon and waited barely a second for her inbox to pop up. Scanning the list, she saw that she actually had four new emails. One from Mimiru, one from Sora, another from Bear and the most recent from Kite. Amaya debated which to open first and decided upon opening Bear's and then Kite's. The other two were probably about her recent revival of her account.
Sender: Bear
To: Tsukasa
Subject: The News
Message:
Amaya:
I'm sure you've read the news about the suicide. I don't mean to pry or to jump to conclusions, but I am pretty sure that man was your father. If so… Well, if you need a place to stay, just give me a call. You don't have to talk about it… And you don't to call me right away. If you need a day or two by yourself… But I'll stop by if I don't hear from you after a while. Ok? You don't need to isolate yourself. Remember, you always have friends.
Bear
A half smile flickered across her face before Amaya moved on the Kite's email. She had no doubt that she would call Bear, but not tonight. Tomorrow… yes, tomorrow. She wouldn't be going to school tomorrow, anyway.
Sender: Kite
To: Tsukasa
Subject: Meeting
Message:
Amaya-
Hey. Hope you had a good day at school. : )
Will you meet me in Dun Loireag? I'll be logging on in a few minutes and, if you're home… And reading this, it would be nice if you'd join me. Besides, I want to talk some things over with you.
Kite
Amaya again grasped a tissue and began to dry her eyes and blow her nose. This time, she also had to wipe a little steam off of her glasses. Then, the girl put on the headset and controls. And she logged into The World…
A/N
Yea, yea.. It's been a while, but I do have mediocer excuses!! 1) lack of internet for a while, 2) broken laptop upon which I do most of my writing, 3) I'm lazy? (no attacking me, please... The characters already to that enough... seriously! Kite & Tsukasa keep popping out of the computor and beating me with blade & staff!
Anyway, I had a lovely Christmas & New Years, power outages & all. I hope you were doing well, too..
To my Reviewers! ( I know this chapter is short, but the next one will be pretty long... Romance & Action will be present... and maybe schitzophrenia... and revenge and pain and an annoyed Blackrose and little rabbit pink rabbits... ok, so maybe not /all/ of those.. I haven't finished writing it yet, but... yea.. And I will get around to updating my other fics, don't worry!)
Dreamcaster555: Thankies for reviewing again! I have internet at home now and have had it for a couple weeks.. I just kind of didn't post/finish writing this chapter... Um... sorry... -bows shamedly-
Tsukasathefominian: Evil Cliffies rawk! Em... except for yours... I WANNA KNOW WHAT HAPPENS!!! Anyway, it wasn't letting me review your story for some reason... But I did read your most recent chapter... Probably a tainted happy ending... or maybe even a sad ending.. depends on if I'm depressed at the time or what... I haven't finished thinking out the plot yet...
Mack: -blushes- Thankyou!
Minako: Thanks! But your post is hard to read because of the lack of punctuation... Morganna /is/ evil.. ehehe! And she gets worse.. I do feel sorry for Kite & Tsukasa... but after they attacked me, I felt distictly less sympathetic of their plights... Aura's already come in in a distant sort of way, but she'll make an actual appearance somewhere in the next couple chapters, I think... And who said Morganna wasn't going to go after Tsukasa..? The mother of Aura just hasn't had the perfect opportunity yet.. plus, she really is pissed at Tsukasa, so.. poor Amaya/Tsukasa... She might wind up having it worse than Kite... -claps hands over mouth- Oops.. maybe I've spoiled it a little...
Kitedragon: You are welcome for that email! Actually, I don't mind having my mistakes pointed out. It helps... And not everyone is perfect.. Eh.. what happened to Amaya's dad ish explained in this chapter... Actualy, suicidal thoughts wouldn't be crazy for Kite at this time, but.. eh... No, he ain't jumpin' off that there cliff!
Macky: Thanks!
Dragon's Hitokiri: Thank you!