.Hack: Penance
A .Hack fanfiction by Renfro Calhoun
Disclaimer: Project .Hack and attached characters/concepts are property of Bandai and Cyber Connect. They are used without permission, but with the utmost respect.
Notes: Happens following the end of Quarantine. (Thoughts,) [text,] {email domains}. Glad to see there's so much speculation going on in the sidelines! Don't worry, it'll all be clear quite soon. As usual, C&C are more than welcome. By the way, have I mentioned that Far Cry is super freaking awesome? I think that should be how I start conversations from now on :)
This chapter written under the influence of: Queensryche - Open
Chapter 8 – Enough to Go On
------------------------------------
(She's online! Good, now maybe I can get her attention...)
His hands blindly set the controller aside, and drifted over to the keyboard; the arid, red-hued field was in his eyes, though his attention was elsewhere as his fingers found the small divots on the F and J keys.
[From: Kite
BlackRose! I'm sorry for not replying earlier; I got your email... sort of. There's a problem with my account, and I think there's something very serious going on – someone has been erasing my mail. I'm headed to Delta: Hidden Corrupted Paradise, the field that was reported on the boards about that]
Hiroshi blinked as the text stopped. He continued typing, but the machine only made a slight beeping noise, the cursor flashing but otherwise remaining still. Then it hit him.
[From: Kite
Sorry, got cut off by the character limit. Anyway, I heard about it from Lios, but I never got to read your emails; if that's what you were trying to tell me, I'm at the field now. – Kite]
One fairy's orb later, Kite deduced that the area above ground had been thoroughly cleared out, and made a beeline straight for the dungeon. His boots kicked up tiny clouds of dust as he ran, eyes peering through his teal bangs in search of any other players.
(If it was on the boards, then someone had to have seen it... a guy dressed in orange. But what would it be doing here? How does it all fit in?)
A program on his computer erasing specific email; a man in black looking for Stolls; reports of a man in orange lurking in a different field. Though he tried his best, the boy couldn't get the events to match up, and he wasn't entirely certain they were meant to.
He ducked through the dungeon entrance, and the scuffing of shoes on dirt turned into wet plops and squishes, the ground replaced with the pliant flesh of the colossal, treasure-filled beast.
The sound made him flinch; almost a year had passed since he started playing the game, and yet there were some things he hadn't gotten used to. The disturbing sensation of walking into the maw of a giant beast was one of them.
[From: BlackRose
There you are! I'm in the dungeon already, with Ryoko. We just found something weird, we'll be right out. Wait by the entrance, okay?]
Her message caught him momentarily off guard, but he recovered in short order, spun on his heels, and followed the path right back out of the dungeon.
The sun's harsh glare poked a hole through the clouds, staring him in the eyes, causing him to squint. He strode away from the entrance and sheathed his daggers, folding his arms across his chest as he began to wait.
(Wait... she's with Ryoko?) he thought all of a sudden, freezing up as he recalled the last time both girls had been in a party with him. (Oh, no. I hope they weren't fighting or anything. Well... they probably wouldn't have gone into the dungeon together if they were still arguing over that.)
Kite closed his eyes, hoping that neither girl was still bitter over his decision. Ryoko hadn't brought the subject up since, and neither had BlackRose, so he could only assume it was water under the bridge. Then again, he never thought the two would so blatantly compete for his favor, either.
(I think we're going to have to talk about it one of these days...) A slight shiver snaked through his body at the thought.
He heard a familiar chiming from behind, and turned around to find an even more familiar pair of adventurers standing by the entrance.
"Hey there!" called BlackRose, racing over with a smiling Ryoko in tow. "I've been waiting to hear from you. It's not polite to keep a lady waiting, you know!" she admonished.
"I know, I'm sorry," said Kite, his tone sheepish despite the circumstances. "I didn't mean to..."
He heard a faint giggle, followed by "I know, I read your message. I'm just teasing." The pink-haired Heavy Blade followed the statement with a smiley face.
Ryoko bowed her head to Kite. "It's good to see you again. We figured something was wrong when you weren't answering her mail, and then again with the problems you were having earlier."
Kite found a smile creeping onto his face, feeling more than a little proud that the two of them had worked together to deduce what was going on. "So you came here to check on the rumor, right?" he asked. "What did you find out?"
To his surprise, their expressions went blank. "A party before us killed the character," BlackRose explained. "We never even saw it."
"Oh... did you find the party, then?" he pressed.
Ryoko nodded. "Yes, we found them. The way they described him... it's almost like he was a... a prisoner of some sort."
Kite glanced at Terajima, curious. "A prisoner?"
"Yeah, and there was this note they found," added BlackRose, who proceeded to produce a sheet of white paper, partially marred with blood. "Some of it was cut off, but it talks about some... well, I'm not sure, a fight at a prison or something. Take a look."
She offered it to the Twin Blade, who gingerly accepted the note and began reading. His eyes grew darker as he read the account, and his obvious confusion only grew more definite when he spied the words 'he's here' on the back.
"He's here?" Kite parroted. "So, that character... was he the one this note was talking about?"
"I think so," said BlackRose.
"It could also be either of those other two," the Axewoman chimed in. "What were their names... Croker, and that other one."
Kite scanned the note again. "Wait a minute... California." He looked up. "This happened in California?"
"That's what it says." BlackRose tilted her head. "Why?"
"Stolls... uh, Dean, he's from California. He used to be with the police."
Terajima gasped. "He was a police officer? Then... maybe that note... and that prisoner..."
"Someone he put in jail," finished BlackRose. "Maybe this person's after him, in the real world... and someone in here is trying to warn him?" She scratched the back of her ear with a free hand. "Someone who can't reach him normally?"
"I don't know," Kite replied, lowering his gaze. "But I think we should let him know about this. Maybe he can tell us more about whoever the prisoner was, at least."
"I agree," said Ryoko.
Kite brought up his menu, but stopped when he heard BlackRose speak again. "You said you didn't get my mail?" she asked.
"Yeah... and yours wasn't the only one," he said. "There was one from an anonymous address."
She looked at him strangely. "Anonymous? Wait, was it the one I tried sending..." she stopped, catching herself. "Oh, right. Well, I got one too, and I wasn't sure what to make of it. Let's head back to the root town, I'll show it to you."
"All right."
They gated out separately, BlackRose's party first, followed by Kite. A second of loading time later, they appeared in Mac Anu, gathered close together in the confines of the Chaos Gate enclosure. Opting to find a secluded locale to continue their discussion, the three made their way to the nearest alley, following it to an empty cul-de-sac.
"I'll go get the email again," said the Heavy Blade, who froze in place as her attention left 'The World'.
Kite ambled over to the wall of a building and leaned against it, letting himself slide into a sitting position. He crossed his legs, letting his hands rest on his knees as he watched BlackRose expectantly. Ryoko followed suit, folding her skirt under her legs as she knelt down.
"Might as well mail Stolls," Kite said. "I'll be right back."
-
From: Kite {theworld}
To: Stolls {theworld}
Subj: Letter from prison?
BlackRose and Ryoko found this weird letter in a field in the game; they said it was from the character in orange that was reported on the boards. The way it was described was like a prisoner; the party that killed it showed us a letter they said it dropped. It talks about some fight that happened at a prison in California, and on the back someone wrote the words 'he's here'.
Do either of these names sound familiar? Felix Croker or William DeGarmo? It was signed by some guy named Philip Alvarez... and it also mentioned another prisoner, whose number was 72881D.
I think whoever it is might know about your past; the girls think it might even be one of the names on the letter.
- Kite
-
"When did you two run into each other?"
Ryoko turned her head towards him. "It wasn't long after you left. I found her waiting out on the bridge."
Kite nodded. (I hope she wasn't waiting too long...)
"Kite," she began, her voice soft as ever, but with a tightness that could have been concern. "Do you... have any idea what this might all be about?"
He shook his head. "Not really... the character knows Stolls, and he knows me... the real me." A pause. "Well, my name at least. Maybe it's related to what happened to the both of us..."
She placed a hand on the ground and shifted her body to the left, angling towards him. "What is it?"
Glancing up at the still frozen BlackRose, Kite inhaled deeply, and released it in a long sigh. "It's kind of a long story... it happened alongside everything that was going on in 'The World', with Morganna and Aura."
He didn't get to continue. As he stared at BlackRose, she came back to life, quickly noticing the seated posture of her two companions and joining them on the ground.
"All right, I've dictated it into a flash mail that I'm going to send to the both of you. Make sure to log it!"
[From: BlackRose
Kite,
I--- m-! --- the -an -- -l---!
T--t ---'- -t-l--, th--'s an -mp---e-
They ---- h--, ---g----.
D--'t ----- hi-!
--a-]
Hiroshi reached out with his right hand, finding its place on the keyboard, and touched one of the function keys, saving the message. For the sake of caution, he also felt around for the print screen button, recognizing its position to the right of the function keys.
"I've tried to decipher it," BlackRose added, "and could only come up with the following that I was sure about."
Opening his log menu, Kite nodded to the pink-haired warrior. "Okay."
[From: BlackRose
Kite,
I--- me! --- the man -- -l---!
That ---'- -t-l--, that's an -mp---e-
They ---- h--, ---g----.
Don't ----- him!
--a-]
Ryoko 'hmm'ed quietly, studying the message before her. "Isn't this like those messages you received from Aura? The ones that were scrambled?"
"Yeah... yeah, it is kinda like that, actually."
"That part at the bottom looks like a name," BlackRose remarked.
"An 'a' in that third spot..." Kite jerked his head, looking up and at BlackRose. "That could be Dean." He then turned to Ryoko and explained, "That's Stolls in the real world."
Terajima stopped to adjust her posture, sitting up straighter. "How could that be him? You've been in contact with him, haven't you?"
Kite shrugged. "Well, yeah... I was with him when we saw the man in black."
Ryoko made a small noise, then blinked and stared hard at a section of the text. "Man in black?" she muttered, barely loud enough for the statement to be a question.
The other two eyed her, and BlackRose was first to ask – in a manner of speaking. "Huh?"
"What if... well, the 'l', it's in the right place. What if those last words, in the first line, are 'man in black?'"
Kite could almost see the light clicking on in BlackRose's eyes. "It fits... 'me... the man in black'. What if this message is from that man? He did know your name, right?"
"It was written in the ground." Kite idly chewed on his lip for a moment. "But wait, if he knew my real name, why would he address me as 'Kite' in the letter?"
"I don't know..."
The three shared a defeated sigh, one of which turned into a yawn. "Mmm... well, it's getting kind of late," said BlackRose as she stood up and stretched. "I have to get to bed soon."
"Yeah, me too," Kite said in agreement. As he and Ryoko moved to their feet, he added, "thanks for checking out that dungeon. At least we were able to get a clue from it all." (I hope it's a clue, anyway.) "And I'm sorry again about your emails, BlackRose."
She waved dismissively, smiling at the Twin Blade. "Don't worry, it wasn't your fault." Her gaze shifted to Ryoko. "I'm just glad I ran into you two. Maybe we'll all be able to get to the bottom of this."
Ryoko performed her typical bow of the head, though Kite noticed a similar smile on her face. "It was nice to work with you."
Part of Kite wanted to do a double-take. Working together was one thing, but being polite to each other? These were most certainly not the same girls who had parted from him in anger and frustration so long ago.
As they exchanged good-byes and logged out, the boy had one final thought as his online self, a thought that made him smile and cringe at the same time.
(I am really not looking forward to that talk.)
- End of Chapter 8
A .Hack fanfiction by Renfro Calhoun
Disclaimer: Project .Hack and attached characters/concepts are property of Bandai and Cyber Connect. They are used without permission, but with the utmost respect.
Notes: Happens following the end of Quarantine. (Thoughts,) [text,] {email domains}. Glad to see there's so much speculation going on in the sidelines! Don't worry, it'll all be clear quite soon. As usual, C&C are more than welcome. By the way, have I mentioned that Far Cry is super freaking awesome? I think that should be how I start conversations from now on :)
This chapter written under the influence of: Queensryche - Open
Chapter 8 – Enough to Go On
------------------------------------
(She's online! Good, now maybe I can get her attention...)
His hands blindly set the controller aside, and drifted over to the keyboard; the arid, red-hued field was in his eyes, though his attention was elsewhere as his fingers found the small divots on the F and J keys.
[From: Kite
BlackRose! I'm sorry for not replying earlier; I got your email... sort of. There's a problem with my account, and I think there's something very serious going on – someone has been erasing my mail. I'm headed to Delta: Hidden Corrupted Paradise, the field that was reported on the boards about that]
Hiroshi blinked as the text stopped. He continued typing, but the machine only made a slight beeping noise, the cursor flashing but otherwise remaining still. Then it hit him.
[From: Kite
Sorry, got cut off by the character limit. Anyway, I heard about it from Lios, but I never got to read your emails; if that's what you were trying to tell me, I'm at the field now. – Kite]
One fairy's orb later, Kite deduced that the area above ground had been thoroughly cleared out, and made a beeline straight for the dungeon. His boots kicked up tiny clouds of dust as he ran, eyes peering through his teal bangs in search of any other players.
(If it was on the boards, then someone had to have seen it... a guy dressed in orange. But what would it be doing here? How does it all fit in?)
A program on his computer erasing specific email; a man in black looking for Stolls; reports of a man in orange lurking in a different field. Though he tried his best, the boy couldn't get the events to match up, and he wasn't entirely certain they were meant to.
He ducked through the dungeon entrance, and the scuffing of shoes on dirt turned into wet plops and squishes, the ground replaced with the pliant flesh of the colossal, treasure-filled beast.
The sound made him flinch; almost a year had passed since he started playing the game, and yet there were some things he hadn't gotten used to. The disturbing sensation of walking into the maw of a giant beast was one of them.
[From: BlackRose
There you are! I'm in the dungeon already, with Ryoko. We just found something weird, we'll be right out. Wait by the entrance, okay?]
Her message caught him momentarily off guard, but he recovered in short order, spun on his heels, and followed the path right back out of the dungeon.
The sun's harsh glare poked a hole through the clouds, staring him in the eyes, causing him to squint. He strode away from the entrance and sheathed his daggers, folding his arms across his chest as he began to wait.
(Wait... she's with Ryoko?) he thought all of a sudden, freezing up as he recalled the last time both girls had been in a party with him. (Oh, no. I hope they weren't fighting or anything. Well... they probably wouldn't have gone into the dungeon together if they were still arguing over that.)
Kite closed his eyes, hoping that neither girl was still bitter over his decision. Ryoko hadn't brought the subject up since, and neither had BlackRose, so he could only assume it was water under the bridge. Then again, he never thought the two would so blatantly compete for his favor, either.
(I think we're going to have to talk about it one of these days...) A slight shiver snaked through his body at the thought.
He heard a familiar chiming from behind, and turned around to find an even more familiar pair of adventurers standing by the entrance.
"Hey there!" called BlackRose, racing over with a smiling Ryoko in tow. "I've been waiting to hear from you. It's not polite to keep a lady waiting, you know!" she admonished.
"I know, I'm sorry," said Kite, his tone sheepish despite the circumstances. "I didn't mean to..."
He heard a faint giggle, followed by "I know, I read your message. I'm just teasing." The pink-haired Heavy Blade followed the statement with a smiley face.
Ryoko bowed her head to Kite. "It's good to see you again. We figured something was wrong when you weren't answering her mail, and then again with the problems you were having earlier."
Kite found a smile creeping onto his face, feeling more than a little proud that the two of them had worked together to deduce what was going on. "So you came here to check on the rumor, right?" he asked. "What did you find out?"
To his surprise, their expressions went blank. "A party before us killed the character," BlackRose explained. "We never even saw it."
"Oh... did you find the party, then?" he pressed.
Ryoko nodded. "Yes, we found them. The way they described him... it's almost like he was a... a prisoner of some sort."
Kite glanced at Terajima, curious. "A prisoner?"
"Yeah, and there was this note they found," added BlackRose, who proceeded to produce a sheet of white paper, partially marred with blood. "Some of it was cut off, but it talks about some... well, I'm not sure, a fight at a prison or something. Take a look."
She offered it to the Twin Blade, who gingerly accepted the note and began reading. His eyes grew darker as he read the account, and his obvious confusion only grew more definite when he spied the words 'he's here' on the back.
"He's here?" Kite parroted. "So, that character... was he the one this note was talking about?"
"I think so," said BlackRose.
"It could also be either of those other two," the Axewoman chimed in. "What were their names... Croker, and that other one."
Kite scanned the note again. "Wait a minute... California." He looked up. "This happened in California?"
"That's what it says." BlackRose tilted her head. "Why?"
"Stolls... uh, Dean, he's from California. He used to be with the police."
Terajima gasped. "He was a police officer? Then... maybe that note... and that prisoner..."
"Someone he put in jail," finished BlackRose. "Maybe this person's after him, in the real world... and someone in here is trying to warn him?" She scratched the back of her ear with a free hand. "Someone who can't reach him normally?"
"I don't know," Kite replied, lowering his gaze. "But I think we should let him know about this. Maybe he can tell us more about whoever the prisoner was, at least."
"I agree," said Ryoko.
Kite brought up his menu, but stopped when he heard BlackRose speak again. "You said you didn't get my mail?" she asked.
"Yeah... and yours wasn't the only one," he said. "There was one from an anonymous address."
She looked at him strangely. "Anonymous? Wait, was it the one I tried sending..." she stopped, catching herself. "Oh, right. Well, I got one too, and I wasn't sure what to make of it. Let's head back to the root town, I'll show it to you."
"All right."
They gated out separately, BlackRose's party first, followed by Kite. A second of loading time later, they appeared in Mac Anu, gathered close together in the confines of the Chaos Gate enclosure. Opting to find a secluded locale to continue their discussion, the three made their way to the nearest alley, following it to an empty cul-de-sac.
"I'll go get the email again," said the Heavy Blade, who froze in place as her attention left 'The World'.
Kite ambled over to the wall of a building and leaned against it, letting himself slide into a sitting position. He crossed his legs, letting his hands rest on his knees as he watched BlackRose expectantly. Ryoko followed suit, folding her skirt under her legs as she knelt down.
"Might as well mail Stolls," Kite said. "I'll be right back."
-
From: Kite {theworld}
To: Stolls {theworld}
Subj: Letter from prison?
BlackRose and Ryoko found this weird letter in a field in the game; they said it was from the character in orange that was reported on the boards. The way it was described was like a prisoner; the party that killed it showed us a letter they said it dropped. It talks about some fight that happened at a prison in California, and on the back someone wrote the words 'he's here'.
Do either of these names sound familiar? Felix Croker or William DeGarmo? It was signed by some guy named Philip Alvarez... and it also mentioned another prisoner, whose number was 72881D.
I think whoever it is might know about your past; the girls think it might even be one of the names on the letter.
- Kite
-
"When did you two run into each other?"
Ryoko turned her head towards him. "It wasn't long after you left. I found her waiting out on the bridge."
Kite nodded. (I hope she wasn't waiting too long...)
"Kite," she began, her voice soft as ever, but with a tightness that could have been concern. "Do you... have any idea what this might all be about?"
He shook his head. "Not really... the character knows Stolls, and he knows me... the real me." A pause. "Well, my name at least. Maybe it's related to what happened to the both of us..."
She placed a hand on the ground and shifted her body to the left, angling towards him. "What is it?"
Glancing up at the still frozen BlackRose, Kite inhaled deeply, and released it in a long sigh. "It's kind of a long story... it happened alongside everything that was going on in 'The World', with Morganna and Aura."
He didn't get to continue. As he stared at BlackRose, she came back to life, quickly noticing the seated posture of her two companions and joining them on the ground.
"All right, I've dictated it into a flash mail that I'm going to send to the both of you. Make sure to log it!"
[From: BlackRose
Kite,
I--- m-! --- the -an -- -l---!
T--t ---'- -t-l--, th--'s an -mp---e-
They ---- h--, ---g----.
D--'t ----- hi-!
--a-]
Hiroshi reached out with his right hand, finding its place on the keyboard, and touched one of the function keys, saving the message. For the sake of caution, he also felt around for the print screen button, recognizing its position to the right of the function keys.
"I've tried to decipher it," BlackRose added, "and could only come up with the following that I was sure about."
Opening his log menu, Kite nodded to the pink-haired warrior. "Okay."
[From: BlackRose
Kite,
I--- me! --- the man -- -l---!
That ---'- -t-l--, that's an -mp---e-
They ---- h--, ---g----.
Don't ----- him!
--a-]
Ryoko 'hmm'ed quietly, studying the message before her. "Isn't this like those messages you received from Aura? The ones that were scrambled?"
"Yeah... yeah, it is kinda like that, actually."
"That part at the bottom looks like a name," BlackRose remarked.
"An 'a' in that third spot..." Kite jerked his head, looking up and at BlackRose. "That could be Dean." He then turned to Ryoko and explained, "That's Stolls in the real world."
Terajima stopped to adjust her posture, sitting up straighter. "How could that be him? You've been in contact with him, haven't you?"
Kite shrugged. "Well, yeah... I was with him when we saw the man in black."
Ryoko made a small noise, then blinked and stared hard at a section of the text. "Man in black?" she muttered, barely loud enough for the statement to be a question.
The other two eyed her, and BlackRose was first to ask – in a manner of speaking. "Huh?"
"What if... well, the 'l', it's in the right place. What if those last words, in the first line, are 'man in black?'"
Kite could almost see the light clicking on in BlackRose's eyes. "It fits... 'me... the man in black'. What if this message is from that man? He did know your name, right?"
"It was written in the ground." Kite idly chewed on his lip for a moment. "But wait, if he knew my real name, why would he address me as 'Kite' in the letter?"
"I don't know..."
The three shared a defeated sigh, one of which turned into a yawn. "Mmm... well, it's getting kind of late," said BlackRose as she stood up and stretched. "I have to get to bed soon."
"Yeah, me too," Kite said in agreement. As he and Ryoko moved to their feet, he added, "thanks for checking out that dungeon. At least we were able to get a clue from it all." (I hope it's a clue, anyway.) "And I'm sorry again about your emails, BlackRose."
She waved dismissively, smiling at the Twin Blade. "Don't worry, it wasn't your fault." Her gaze shifted to Ryoko. "I'm just glad I ran into you two. Maybe we'll all be able to get to the bottom of this."
Ryoko performed her typical bow of the head, though Kite noticed a similar smile on her face. "It was nice to work with you."
Part of Kite wanted to do a double-take. Working together was one thing, but being polite to each other? These were most certainly not the same girls who had parted from him in anger and frustration so long ago.
As they exchanged good-byes and logged out, the boy had one final thought as his online self, a thought that made him smile and cringe at the same time.
(I am really not looking forward to that talk.)
- End of Chapter 8