There really is no point in trying to explain why I took this long to update and how sorry I am that this did take so long, especially on the last chapter. You could kind of think of it as an early season finale before the actual season finale. Anyway, if anyone even does read this, enjoy the last chapter of this, and shortly I'll have the actual sequel out. Thanks for waiting if you did.

By the way, thank youfor the recent reviews on my first .hack story.

SECRETS

Claire stared absently at the disc she had placed on her table. It looked like a CD, but played no music. She had inserted it into her DVD player, and nothing happened. There was only one thing left the disc could be.

She turned on her computer, and inserted the disc.


Terry struggled not to show signs of shortness of breath. Ryu and herself had been climbing the steps for the past five minutes, and still saw no signs of another floor. How far down did they lock them?

"Damn," muttered Ryu as they topped the eighth flight of steps. There were fifteen steps each section, and one flight consisted of two sections. "They're steep, too! They're not those short little ones that aren't even stairs. I mean,-,"

"Hold on," Terry interrupted as she stared straight up through the gaps in cement that the railing provided. She glimpsed what looked like a skylight only two or three more flights above them. "I think that this building is entirely underground."

"What do you mean?" asked Ryu, not following her logic.

"The skylight up there doesn't seem to show a high elevation. I think we've been climbing up to the first floor. They must have what they do in here on the bottom floor."

"You mean, once we reach the top…," Ryu began, but Terry finished.

"We'll have to go down to reach our destination,"

Ryu muttered again, and Terry led the way as they continued their climb, and finally reached the top as Ryu gasped for air a little ways behind her.

"You know?" he started as he reached the top floor. "I really don't like these guys."

Terry laughed a little, and cautiously opened the door to the first floor.


Claire opened the data file on the disc when it was finished loading. She studied it for about five minutes before she gasped.

"This," she began. "This is the original version of the virus!"

A TV blared in the background.

"So far recorded, it is believed ten people died from playing the controversial game in Japan alone. These victims all were first comatose before their death, and all of this happened in the time that CC Corporation was threatening to shut down the popular game due to a rampaging virus in the game.

"All victims' characters were infected with this virus in large quantities. One victim, Shelly Tonsay's father passed due to what is believed to be a car accident. His body was believed to be hurled from the car, and never recovered.

"Our question to the world is, should such a game be allowed to exist if these computer flashes can comatose victims? I for one-,"


Surprisingly, the other side of the door revealed a vast single room with no one in it. The only things that seemed out of place in the formal yet casual setting were the secretary's desk and three elevators.

"500yen says that desk is just for show," growled Ryu. Terry gave an awkward smile, and they went towards the elevators. "By the way, do you know where that disc they want is?"

"Yeah," muttered Terry. "When they grabbed me, I left it at my friend Claire's house. I don't know if she took it inside or not,"

"I'd hope so," Ryu said, staring out the window into the night of rain.

"It's been doing that a lot recently," Terry's breaking the silence that had settled over them made Ryu jump.

"What?" he asked stupidly.

"Raining. It seems like it won't stop," said Terry slowly. Ryu nodded, and pushed down on the elevator.

"So far so good, but we'd be screwed if someone came on the elevator while we were on it," Ryu said negatively.

"Maybe they won't?" suggested Terry, but Ryu still felt like he was getting into another mess he didn't want to be in. No, he'd been involved since he found that axe in the game. He was just getting deeper into the mess.


"You're going home?" a man asked another one. The object of the question was fatter, and had less hair. His squinty eyes and double chin made it pretty much impossible to tell his feelings from his face alone.

"Yea," said the fat one. He pushed the 'up' button on the elevator. "Just a little tired."

"Alright," said the other one. "I'll see you tomorrow. Try to be on time for once!" He was joking, but the fat one scowled as he stepped into the elevator.

"Damn him," he muttered to himself as he waited for it to reach the first floor. Was it his fault he had no car?

The elevator doors opened and he was greeted by a teenage kid yelling, "Oh shit!" and then he felt pain on his head, and passed out.


"See? Bad omen," began Ryu.

"I didn't know you were into that kind of stuff," jeered Terry, holding a wooden baseball bat. "Just be glad that whoever worked at this desk liked baseball."

"I don't think you hurt him to bad," said Ryu when he saw Terry's expression at the passed out man. "Just knocked him out, is all."

"Oh," said Terry. "Well? Are you gonna move him out of the way, or what?" Ryu sighed, and pushed the fat man out of the elevator.

"Wow, he's heavy," grunted Ryu, trying to drag the man. He finally settled on rolling him out, and he and Terry went in. "Aw man,"

"What is it?" asked Terry.

"We need a key to get to the bottom floor," he growled. "Why are we going down here for, anyway?"

"We need to destroy any other copies of the virus, and, if Claire's theory is right, delete an e-mail containing a huge part of the virus," Terry replied casually.

"An e-mail?" asked Ryu. "Why would that have a code for the virus?"

"I don't know," Terry answered honestly. "But I do know that we need to hurry before we're noticed."

"Alright," Ryu said. "But shouldn't this guy have a key?" Terry bent down next to the man they attacked.

"No," she said. "Can we move on? This guy smells like bad fish,"

Ryu laughed a little, and then pushed the lowest floor button on the elevator.


Claire stared at the code on her screen. It seemed to have faint clues about the location of its origins. Maybe if she could track where the disc was from, she could get an idea as of its creation. Now all she had to do was go through the difficult process of hacking a server.

The elevator descended the floors one by one, and not a single other person going down had gotten on. All this did was make Terry's fear of another person getting on the elevator grow.

Finally, the elevator stopped. Terry felt somewhat relieved, and waited for the doors to open, but Ryu put a hand on her shoulder.

"This isn't the floor we chose," he said quietly. Terry glanced at the buttons on the wall, and felt her stomach plummet. Ryu had picked the lowest button, the eighteenth floor. They were stopped on the seventeenth.

"What do we do?" Terry asked, afraid that they were trapped.

"Let me see that baseball bat," Ryu whispered. Terry stared at first, but then remembered the narrow wooden object clutched in her hand. She nodded, and handed it to him.

The door slid open.

A man with glasses was staring intently at a clipboard. He seemed not to notice Ryu and Terry standing in the elevator. Ryu brought the bat down quickly, and knocked him out.

"At least no one's seen us yet," Ryu said. "This floor looks just as deserted…"

"Ryu," Terry said. "Look!" A glint of silver caught Ryu's eye. Terry reached the man, and pulled off a small keychain from his belt. Four keys were hanging together on the chain.

Terry stood up, and handed the chain to Ryu. "Try it on the elevator," she offered.

Ryu carefully slid the shortest key into the key slot, and it turned easily to the right. The glass panel marked '19' light up, and the elevator doors began to close. Terry jumped in, and the doors closed, blocking the man and wooden baseball bat from their view.


Claire was growing aggravated from trying to hack into the group dubbed 'S.R.H.W.'. They're database was so heavily encoded with passwords and locks that it was seemingly impossible to get into.

Claire was sitting on her front porch with a wire connecting her laptop to the internet leading into her house. The cool night air blew by, and Claire shuddered slightly. She remembered Terry.

Where was she? Did she go home? That was the most likely answer. She couldn't imagine Terry still out on the streets at this hour. Sighing from confusion, Claire opened the folder that was left on her porch along with the disc.

"Hiyaki?" Claire asked the air, and read the file. Her eyes widened in surprise. This man the file described was a virus victim, but this was so long ago. Could this be the virus prototype that affected him? Then she figured it out.

"This disc is the virus prototype," she whispered. "It must be important to this group, but what could they do with it?"


The nineteenth floor was nothing but a long hallway leading to a small office door. Terry tried to open it, but noticed it was locked. Ryu stepped in front, and fumbled with three of the keys before getting the right one on the forth try. Ryu pushed open the office.

"This is definitely Varuchio's office," Terry muttered as they walked in. Ryu recognized it too. It was exactly the same as the one in "The World". The screens that had once monitored their progress in "The World", now showed majority of the floors in the building. Ryu stared at them, and Terry sat down at the computer.

Luckily, it wasn't locked by a password. Varuchio must have been sure no one would manage to get into his office. It wasn't long before Terry had gotten on to ALTIMIT. Terry clicked the e-mail section, and saw a long list of unopened mail. One seemed to be addressed to Varuchio from himself. Terry clicked on it, and saw only three words; 'file name, SECRETS'. Confused, Terry continued to scroll down the e-mail list, searching for the virus. There it was, a huge code for the virus was listed last.

"Terry," started Ryu. "They found him,"

Terry looked up to the surveillance screen Ryu was looking at, and saw three or four thuggish looked people huddled over the unconscious man they had taken the key from. They seemed to notice that the key was missing, and immediately ran down the stairwell.

"We don't have much time," Ryu said warningly.

"Just a few more seconds," Terry responded. She clicked 'delete' over the virus mail, but the computer was taking its time. The file must have been made of multiple parts, because the computer had a notice pop up displaying the results of the deletion.

60

Ryu watched as the men rounded the corner leading to the Eighteenth floor in the stairwell.

75

They had now stopped at a door blocking the last stairwell from access.

80

One ran back up the steps. They must have forgotten the key to the nineteenth floor.

90

The man with the key now in hand reached the bottom of the stairs.

The file was now in the recycling bin. Terry was quickly typing to empty it.

They had unlocked the door, and started running down a final few flights of steps, when Terry yelled, "It's done,"

"Good," Ryu said. "Come on!" he yelled, and they ran from the office. Sense the thugs were on the stairs, they're only option was the elevator. Both the elevator door and stairwell door opened at the same time.

Terry and Ryu, stepped in, and watched in surprise as the guards rounded the corner towards the office, and completely missed Terry and Ryu. When one finally noticed, all he saw was Ryu smirking, and the elevator doors close all of the way.


They ran out of the building as soon as the elevator reached the top floor. Ryu made sure to lock the building with the keys he still held. That would slow them down. They kept running down the long street.

"Where are we going?" asked Ryu.

"To where I left the disc," Terry responded. Ryu nodded, and they continued down the street. A quick left and Terry immediately recognized where she was. Claire house was only a few more blocks away.


Claire only needed one more code to access the S.R.H.W. database. She had decided to go back inside and figure it out tomorrow, when she saw two figures running down the street towards her house. Claire recognized Terry.

"Terry?" Claire asked, as soon as she was close enough to be talked to without yelling. "What are you doing?"

"That disc," Terry panted. "Do you still have it?" Claire's eyes widened.

"You're the one that left it on my porch?" she asked. "Why? And what happened to you?"

"I'll explain later," Terry said hastily. Then she saw Claire computer screen. "What is that?"

"I don't know. I think it's the people that made the virus's database, but I can't get in until I figure out the last password." Terry thought for a moment, and then smiled.

"Try 'SECRETS'."

"They're coming," Ryu said, staring at a small van driving a few blocks away.

Terry stared. "Call the police," she said finally. Ryu nodded, and ran inside Claire's house.

"It worked!" Claire exclaimed. But her excitement soon died. "It's covered in the virus code."

"Claire," Terry said hastily. "Can you change the Disc into an anti-virus?" Claire smiled.

"Don't insult me," she said. "I'll have it changed in fifteen minutes."

The van was getting closer. Ryu came back outside, and stared. "All we can do now is wait for the police," he said. Claire picked up her stuff, and ran inside. Ryu and Terry followed.

They bolted the door, but that didn't stop the thugs from S.R.H.W. from ramming it. Claire typed hastily.

"Almost," Claire said after a little while. They rammed the door again.

"Any time now Claire," said Terry nervously.

The ramming stopped. A few tense minutes passed by. Terry had broken out in sweat, and Ryu seemed to be grinding his teeth. Claire yelled "Got it!" at the same time the door broke in from one large shoulder ram by the biggest of the guys.

"You're all dead now," grinned the man.

"Freeze!" yelled a voice behind the men. They turned around to see a cop holding them at gunpoint.


They were arrested for breaking and entering, and one cop stayed behind to talk to Claire. Terry used the disc on the hard drive of the group, and watched the virus be deleted once and for all. It was finally over.

"Where are your parents?" asked the cop.

"They went out of town for the weekend," Claire responded. The cop turned towards Terry.

"Are you alright?" asked the cop. And as the rain let up, for the first time that Terry could remember, she answered, "Yes, everything is fine,"


Okay! If anyone still reads this, then I hope that that short story wrapped up the loose ends from .hack/VIRUS. Again, I will shortly start the sequel, .hack/HEARTLESS ENTITY soon, so look forward to that in the fall. Again, I am deeply sorry for how long this update took. I just hope that someone is still reading this.

Please review. Even if it is just to yell for me taking so long to update.