.Hack: Penance
A .Hack fanfiction by Renfro Calhoun
Disclaimer: Project .Hack and attached characters and concepts belong to Cyber Connect and Bandai. They are used without permission, but with the utmost respect.
Notes: Happens after the end of Quarantine. Parentheses indicate thoughts. Well, here it is, folks, the end of the first half. Before this goes down, I feel I should clear something up. The two halves, this time around, happen sequentially, meaning that Dean's takes place, chronologically speaking, after the end of Kite's. These do not explore the same exact events from differing perspectives, as Heist and Relapse did.
With that in mind, read on, critique, and enjoy :)
This chapter written to the tune of: Tom Petty – Refugee
Chapter 20 – A Measure of Finality
"Aiee-YAH!"
The clash of steel on steel followed her war cry as she brought the heavy blade down on her opponent, who managed to raise his spear just in time to block. Breaking the parry, BlackRose jumped right, renewing her assault from another direction.
All around her, the sounds of combat filled her ears; Sanjuro paired off with another Heavy Blade, Balmung struggled to gain advantage against a Wavemaster, and Ryoko was left to deal with a Twin Blade. Two Blademasters seemed to spring from fight to fight, striking whenever one of the others was briefly repelled. She barely had time to identify anything specific about their adversaries, knowing them only by the weapons she saw headed her way.
Amidst it all, Stolls – who had since been brought back with a resurrection spell – stood next to Helba, occasionally throwing a spell into the fray but otherwise remaining still, vigilant.
(He's guarding her,) she thought. (She has to be the key to what they're doing!)
A hearty chop to her right shoulder tore several hundred hit points off her health, forcing her to twist away from the Blademaster's attempted combo. She took several steps back as the two men advanced, and raised her blade to block as both sprang on her at once. Grunting with effort, she spun to her left, deflecting the length of the spear, and then to her right to catch the sword.
"It's Helba!" she shouted. "We gotta stop them from using her!"
"Hrragh!" grunted Balmung as he took a firm bash in the stomach with his opponent's staff. He skipped backwards, struggling to maintain his guard as the other Blademaster rushed him. "I can't get close enough!"
A harsh "Vak Divider!" passed Sanjuro's lips as he spun his katana around, its edge bursting into flames; the swing narrowly missed, but the samurai was quick to follow up, advancing forward and reversing the blade for the backswing. The weapon collided hard with the opposing Heavy Blade's armor, igniting a blinding explosion that knocked him back several paces.
"Don't let up!" shouted Stolls. "Three minutes!"
His words were nearly lost as a loud CLANG echoed through the chamber; Ryoko followed through in her swing, knocking one of the swords out of the Twin Blade's hand. The smaller fighter was quick to turn the tables, lunging beneath the range of the axe head and slashing at the angelic warrior.
The room began to take on a fainter shade of blue, as if the color was slowly being drained from the walls themselves. Bright sparks of electricity occasionally danced here and there, along the ceiling of the chamber.
(They're just trying to keep us occupied,) thought BlackRose. (We have to even the odds somehow.) She knew that the weapons hacking at her slender, tattooed body could cause her no real harm, though the sweat on her palms and forehead, and furiously pounding heart told a different story.
Nimbly, she evaded a strike from the Long Arm, and was partly relieved when her Blademaster turned to assist the Twin Blade, who was suddenly at a disadvantage against Ryoko's relentless attack. The spear-wielder flipped up his weapon and panned right, forcing BlackRose to duck down under the swing; she countered by barreling into him, ramming her shoulder hard into his gut.
He doubled over, and then was bent over backwards with a mighty, upward slash; BlackRose leapt up high, tumbling in the air to strike again, and the stunned Long Arm couldn't stop her. The blade connected, easily cleaving through his skull and – while leaving no graphical damage – causing a critical hit that promptly threw him to the floor, defeated.
She heard the crackle of magical energy, and didn't need to turn around to know that the Wavemaster was preparing another resurrection spell. "Take out the spellcaster!" she hollered, doing an about-face and preparing to follow her own instruction. A bolt of lightning struck her left flank, slowing her pace but doing little else, her armor diffusing much of the elemental damage.
Balmung beat her to the punch, evading his sword-wielding adversary long enough to land a punishing strike to the Wavemaster's back. This broke the man's concentration, disrupting the spell long enough for BlackRose to gain on him. She, too, scored a strong hit, raking her two-handed sword across his chest. Balmung landed the killing blow, ramming his weapon through the Wavemaster's chest just as a slash from behind forced the two apart.
The magician's body fell to the ground, turned gray and vanished. Growling, Stolls hefted his blue wand and joined the battle. "Do I have to do everything by myself?!" he hollered as he engaged the nearest fighter.
Boots clattered loudly on the stone floor as their owners raced down the long hallway; Kite took the lead, with Orca trailing off to his left.
The teal-haired boy skidded to a half when he saw the gate was down. "No," he said under his breath. "Are we too late?" He stepped forward, sheathing his blades and grabbing the bars, testing them. "Someone's in this room."
"It has to be them," said Orca. "Lios just unlocked the field, there shouldn't be anybody ahead of us."
Kite threw a worried look at the gate. "I don't think we can just wait here. Let's call Lios, maybe he can force the door open."
Orca nodded. "Good idea."
The Twin Blade opened his flash mail menu, typing out a hasty request to technical support, addressed specifically to Lios. "There," he said. "Have you gotten any response from Balmung?"
"None yet." Frowning, he added, "and since we signed on, the other two I sent bounced right back to me, like he was offline or something. Same with Sanjuro. But I can see them right on my friend list, they're definitely still on."
"This is bad," Kite said. "I can't get ahold of BlackRose, or Ryoko either."
A few seconds of silence preceded the sudden arrival of Lios, who appeared without fanfare or spectacle, literally fading into view behind the two players. "What's going on?" he demanded, a stern look on his face.
(That was fast.) Turning around, Kite answered, "We think they're in there, but the gate's down. Can you open it?"
"Hold on." The stout administrator stood perfectly still, his eyes closed for just a moment; when they opened, he faced the rusty gate and pointed an index finger toward it. "I can't seem to examine the room itself," he said, "but by the logs from this room there's at least ten people in there, and probably more."
"Dean said something about a trap." Kite turned back to the door. "A trap for a hacker, or an administrator."
Lios flinched. He lowered his hand, and the room flashed pure white for a half-second; when it ceased, the gate opened, and Lios gestured to it. "Be careful," he warned.
Kite and Orca charged through the now-open portal, and gasped in shock at the sight before them.
All four of their allies were locked in a pitched battle with no less than five other player characters – Kite was quick to recognize Stolls – as they surrounded Helba, who appeared to be frozen in place. The walls were a pale blue, starkly contrasting with the previous hallway. More visible were the massive bolts of electricity, which were madly twisting about along the ceiling, striking the exact spot above where Helba stood.
Orca couldn't help but notice that each of his friends seemed more interested in evading their attackers than killing them. Kite, on the other hand, noticed a transparent outline of a human suspended in the air.
"Forty-five seconds!" Stolls yelled, in a voice that Kite no longer recognized.
Nodding to Orca, Kite drew his blades again and the two readied themselves for battle.
"KITE!"
Another voice he knew. He saw BlackRose out the corner of his eye, and shouted over to her, "What's going on?!"
"It's Helba!" She cried out painfully as a slashing blow to the chest knocked her back. "They're hacking through Helba!"
"They did something to her!" Ryoko added, who, despite the unwieldy size of her weapon, was barely able to keep two Blademasters at bay, out of striking reach. "You have to stop her!"
One of the Axewoman's opponents broke free and charged Kite, which highlighted the obvious. Orca was quick to step in front, blade in hand. "Go get Helba! Do what you have to do! I'll cover you!"
Instinct took over, forcing Kite to obey. As he raced towards the white-clad Wavemaster, he heard the clash of steel as Orca intercepted the other Blademaster. Instinct was quick to fail him, however, when he got within striking range, standing right behind the blonde hacker.
"What do I do?" he asked, unsure of whether to attack or try something else.
Her voice piped up through all the chaos. "Kite, is that you?"
"Helba! What's happening? How do I stop this??"
"They've pinned my character into the game," she said. "I don't know, but they're using it to access Aura."
Kite's eyes went wide. "Aura?!" He looked up above Helba, at the outline again; it was starting to take a definite shape, and beyond hands and feet he could see long, flowing lines around the head, not unlike strands of hair. There was a near-invisible hint of color in the shape, a definite silver amidst the ill-defined object.
"You have to kill me," Helba urged. "Do it!"
"I-I... uh, okay! Okay!"
Mustering up his courage, he raised his blades and started to hack and slash, his twin swords cutting deeply, greedily into digital flesh. Numbers flashed up over Helba's body, one-hundred, two-hundred, one-hundred again; small potatoes when he knew her hit points were just shy of ten thousand.
"I'm not doing enough damage!" he cried.
"Fifteen seconds!"
Helba shouted "Hold on!" and she twitched for a second – or what Kite assumed was a twitch, as her idle animation seemed to skip in its normal loop. A second command; "Do it now!"
Frenzied, Kite began hacking for all he was worth, launching immediately into a combo attack; he almost danced, on the ground and in the air, as he stabbed and slashed again and again. Seven thousand left, then six thousand; the attacks were ten times as powerful as before. Five hits, six, seven.
"Aw, shit! She de-equipped herself! Somebody stop that kid! Move it!"
Eight. Nine.
Hiroshi barely heard the footsteps of another Twin Blade rushing to stop him; he landed the killing blow long before taking any damage of his own.
Helba crumpled to the ground, her staff slipping out of her hand, her long, flowing hair spilling down her back and over her shoulders, her dress and sleeves splayed out wide like a snow angel. As she turned gray, the indistinct figure above her head vanished, the arcs of electricity died, and the room slowly regained its color.
The sounds of battle faded, too, as all stopped to watch the spectacle. That silence was quickly broken as Stolls spoke to his comrades. "Log out and regroup," he said in a low, controlled tone of voice that was offset by the intensity with which he stared at Kite.
One by one, the other players gated out, leaving Stolls alone with Kite, Orca and company. The Wavemaster raised a hand, pointing squarely at the Twin Blade. "You're gonna pay for this, you little shit."
"You won't get away with this," Kite shot back, meeting the man's stare firmly, hearing his own heart pound in his chest.
The silver-haired Wavemaster turned away as teleport rings appeared and encircled him, causing him to vanish without a trace.
(How do I get myself into these things?)
Leaning on a fence overlooking the clouds below, Kite folded his hands together and gazed at the horizon, a gorgeous sunset which painted the sky in several shades of gold and orange. One of his feet rested on its toes, most of his weight centered on the other. He felt the wind playing with his hair, his shirt and vest, and for a second, just for a second, believed it was real.
After the fight, Lios had barged in and demanded an explanation. Everyone shared their pieces of the puzzle, which ultimately didn't amount to much; bad guys doing bad things, nothing he couldn't have guessed himself.
They wanted Aura, that much he knew. He'd tried to warn Lios about what Dean's notes had mentioned, about the rival Asara Corporation being connected with Felix Croker, the villain who had masqueraded as Stolls – or who Kite had guessed was playing the Wavemaster – but he'd forgotten much of it in the wake of more pressing matters.
Stolls' parting words had left him ill at ease. All of the boy's adventures online had been just that; things limited to a fake world, things that wouldn't follow him to the real one. Even with Dean, he had never fought an enemy that had a face offline.
He shivered, knowing that someone out there – a human, a felon – had promised revenge.
(It all goes back to the bracelet,) he thought, his eyes slowly drifting down to his hands. He clasped his wrist with the other hand, rubbing it softly. (I wouldn't be involved in any of this if I had never gotten the bracelet.)
Even still, he couldn't think, not for a minute, that he wouldn't have done everything the same, given the chance to do it all again.
"Hey, there you are."
He heard boots on a wooden bridge, and then on grass as BlackRose approached, taking a spot next to him by the fence. "Hi," he said, smiling at her.
"Everyone else left already." She leaned on the fence, propping herself up on an elbow, facing Kite. "Lios, too; he wanted to discuss everything that happened with the other administrators."
"It's hard to believe," he sighed. "So much happening in the game... I mean, even with all we've been through, and now these guys want to... they want to capture Aura."
She ran a hand through her wild pink hair, brushing back a few bangs. "Yeah. I can't believe we were led on by those guys. I mean, they almost got her. If you hadn't shown up when you did, they might have succeeded."
"Did we really stop them, though?" he wondered aloud, letting his doubts surface.
"Aw, c'mon," she urged, "you found out what they were up to, right? And we stopped them from capturing Aura. There's lots of time to worry about what to do next." She grinned, though it was obviously forced. "Don't worry about it!"
He chuckled. "Sorry... I guess that's what I do best, huh?"
"Heh heh." She let her grin fade. "Well, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried, too... it's like we have to wait until they do something again before we can keep going."
"I think you're right."
The two were quiet for some time, perhaps a minute, perhaps longer. An unusual, though not foreign, impulse compelled Kite to scoot a little closer. He hesitated only briefly, untangling his hands and reaching an arm up and over her shoulders. She turned so she was facing the same direction as he, dipping her head lower to allow his arm around.
He heard a contented sigh from her, and detected one of her arms returning the gesture.
BlackRose stared off into the distance for a moment. "Are you still at Dean's place?"
"Yeah, I told mom that Yasuhiko invited me over for dinner. I should probably get going soon, though, it's almost 5:30."
"Really?" Her player glanced at the on-screen clock, and her character raised an eyebrow. "Huh. I thought it was later than that." A smile reappeared on her face, along with a hint of curiosity. "Hey, I just thought of something. There's that festival they're having downtown, the tech fair. It's in town because of that conference, you know about it?"
"Just the name," he replied. Without thinking, he added, "Why, you wanna go?"
The words tumbled out of his mouth before he could catch them, and his face instantly started to turn red. "I, uh... um, well, I mean, were you..."
She laughed, and interrupted. "I know what you meant. I was just about to ask if you wanted to this weekend."
He glanced at her, and though she wasn't blushing she was doing her best to avoid looking directly at him. "I, well, it's okay if you didn't want to, I just..." she rambled, fidgeting on her feet in a way he found remarkably endearing.
Kite angled his body to face her. "I'd like to," he said softly.
Her smile grew, and grew less timid. She faced him once more. "Me too."
"This weekend, then?" he asked, wanting to be absolutely clear, even though he could physically see her words hanging in the air – or rather, he could if he wasn't looking at her instead.
She tightened her hold, looping the other arm around him in a warm embrace. "This weekend," she repeated.
He reciprocated, holding her with both arms. The two stayed there for what seemed like an hour, saying nothing; when they finally parted, it was reluctantly so, their hands lingering on each other's sides before falling away.
"I should probably log off and head for home," said Kite.
"Me too," said BlackRose. "Dinner should be ready soon."
"Thanks for all your help, BlackRose." He smiled once more. "We couldn't have done this..."
"Couldn't have done this without me," she parroted, an honest grin crossing her lips. "I know that already." A small giggle followed, and then she said, "but thank you, too, Kite."
Her eyes darted left, then right, and a dash of anxiety appeared on her face. He was about to ask what was wrong, when she suddenly leaned forward, eyes closed, lips puckered, and planted a quick, light peck on his left cheek.
Hiroshi was too stunned to reply; she giggled again at his expression, albeit shyly so, and quickly scampered away. The Heavy Blade threw an arm back, waving to him as she shouted, "See you later!"
Other players walking by could only wonder why a Twin Blade was standing alone near the grunty pen, blushing and grinning like an idiot for a full minute before logging off.
"Dispatch, this is unit 292. Requesting backup at the Shikima office complex, over."
"292, this is dispatch. Say again, over."
"I say again, requesting backup at the Shikima office complex. Shots fired, officer needs assistance. I repeat, officer in danger! I need backup ASAP! Over!"
"Copy, 292. We're alerting all other officers in the area. What's going on, over?"
"We have a firefight on the 18th floor, unknown number of participants. Visual confirmation of at least four gunmen, possible casualties. Over."
"Standby, 292. Backup is on the way."
- End of Chapter 20