.hack/FRAGMENT

Saya

version 2.0

Mysterious Message: Leave While I'll Still Let You

new topic posted 9.27.05

A young girl, seemingly fourteen or so years of age, collapsed onto her bed in an exhausted heap. She heard her mother call from down the stairs, "Erika! Do you want me to get you something to eat?" she asked.

Erika sighed and brushed her dark brown hair out of her eyes, "No thanks, Mom."

"Do you want to take a nap?" Normally that would have been insulting, seeing as how Erika was sixteen, even though she looked much younger than her age. No sixteen-year-old in the proper mind would take a nap in the middle of the day (or so they gave the impression considering how many teenagers really did seem to take mid-day naps).

The girl reluctantly sat up and looked over at her computer, debating something silently. Her 'mother' was just about to repeat the question when Erika replied, "No, I don't need to." She loved the woman dearly, she truly did, but sometimes she didn't want to be fawned over.

Although she was exhausted, Erika forced herself off the bed and trudged over to her computer where she immediately placed a headset over her eyes and entered 'The World.'

As soon as she logged on, a message appeared on her screen. 'One new mail,' it said. Erika didn't need to wonder who it was; it wasn't as if she had met all that many people in 'The World' since she had started playing the game just the day before. The girl checked her e-mail and when she opened up the message, an image of her friend's character appeared on the top left-hand corner of the screen. She could almost hear Koto's (incredibly beautiful, musical) voice as she read on. "What time zone are you in?" it asked.

Erika replied (you'd be surprised how slow a typist she is) and gated into the lovely and mysterious (though somewhat depressing due to its state of disrepair) city of Mac Anu. Almost as soon as she set foot inside the city, a message appeared on her screen, another new mail from Koto. Erika checked her e-mail, leaving her character to stand idly in the middle of the city's bustling streets. "Great, we're in the same zone. I thought as much, just wanted to make sure, especially since they've connected the servers from so many different parts of the world IRL. Anyway…how about we meet up? We can get you some experience, and hopefully a better weapon."

The white-haired Twin Blade stared at the message in amazement. All that in such a short period of time (I am an amazing typist, probably one of the fastest…yes, I know, I'm so annoyingly modest). Three words and the delta symbol hung at the bottom of the message which was apparently where Koto wanted to meet her. As quickly as she could, the girl gated out into the new area. She looked around for the Heavy Blade and was immediately tackled. Erika felt the wind knocked out of her as she hit the ground with her friend on top of her.

"Would you mind getting up?"

Koto stood and held out a hand for the other girl, "What? Am I that heavy? Just for that, I think I'll keep this awesome weapon I found just a little while ago…"

Erika pulled herself up (with her wonderful friend's help, of course) and brushed invisible dust off of her pure white outfit. Habit. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it that way…"

The Heavy Blade laughed, her chocolate brown eyes sparkling, "I know you didn't, I just like playing with you. You're too nice a person, it makes it so easy." The girl stuck out her tongue playfully and a pair of shining blades appeared in her hands: black blades that curved in slightly, elegantly, with silver hilts. Whenever she moved her hands, the blades left a trail of darkness in their paths.

"Those are the ones you were talking about? They're amazing, where did you get them?" Erika asked, examining the blades as they exchanged hands (that girl can be such a nut about stuff like that).

Koto shrugged uncomfortably and turned around, "Let's get going, the dungeon's over that way. Let's test those things out, though you might be too low a level to use some of the better moves they come with…"

Erika laughed; she hadn't even taken so much as one step into this new area because as soon as she had appeared she had been tackled by her friend. She ran forward but as soon as her right foot hit the ground, time in the game seemed to stop. A low ringing filled the girl's ears and the area blinked in and out of focus. "Hey! What's going on?" the Twin Blade called out to no one in particular, since her friend's character appeared unable to move.

"You shouldn't have come back," a sweet, menacing voice echoed above the noise. "You are no longer needed here, you should not have come back…I won't let you come back…" it sounded like a little girl, albeit a little girl who had just threatened the very existence of the character Erika was playing.

The area returned to normal and Koto looked over at her friend, "What the hell just happened? Everything just stopped and I couldn't hear or see anything…I couldn't move the character…I know it couldn't have been my computer. Mom got the best quality…" her voice trailed off as she brought a black gloved hand to her chin and thought (the hand-to-chin thing is a seriously annoying habit, if I do say so myself).

Erika looked over at her friend, "I don't know. What did that voice mean when it said all that stuff?"

The Heavy Blade's brown head looked up abruptly. Her eyes stared widely at her friend, a mix of fear and curiosity in those brown mirrors (Yes, I called my eyes mirrors, has anyone besides me heard of the whole 'mirrors to the soul' thing? Yes? Good…). "What voice? I didn't hear anything. I was too busy trying to figure out what was wrong with my character…"

"Never mind, I guess I was just imagining things," the white-haired girl shrugged, seemingly knocking the thought off her shoulders. But inside, her mind was spinning with this new mystery.

Koto watched the other girl for a few moments before she said, "You know what, Erika? I think we're going to have to put this off for a while. Keep the blades, they're yours and don't tell anyone you got them from me if they ask. They're rare and I don't want people coming around asking me for stuff all the time…"

Erika nodded, she got the point. Both girls wanted, at that point, some time alone to think about the strangeness that had just occurred. Erika and Koto gated out, disbanded their party and went their separate ways (I logged out and Erika wandered aimlessly through the server's city). Maybe this was something the Twin Blade could ask those strange people from yesterday, Shugo and Rena, about. They were supposedly famous, so (supposedly) they should know a lot about the mysteries of 'The World.'

The white-haired Twin Blade sent a message and sat next to the city's main bridge, next to its clear, sparkling water (though the water was, at the time, no longer pure and clear but slightly dirty and not at all desirable to swim through). A few minutes later she received the reply she was waiting for, a message from the Twin Blade, Shugo. "There's a great area we can meet in, Rena and I want to hear a little more about this…" Once again, at the bottom of a message the keywords to an area were written: delta Hidden, Forbidden, Sacred.

Erika jumped up, she had previously been laying on her back with her hands cushioning her head and her blades resting at her sides, and made her way through the traffic to the Chaos Gate. Ever since the game's servers from different countries had been connected, traffic had become much heavier, but it was interesting to listen to all those different languages floating around her (very few people find enjoyment in listening to people talk in a language they don't understand).

The white-haired girl looked around her at the strange area. It was like a floating cathedral, surrounded by nothing but sky. Erika looked over the edge of the bridge (for lack of a better word) for the ground below her, but couldn't find anything. Instead she listened to the eerie music playing around her as she made her way inside the intimidating, yet beautiful, building.

The first thing Erika saw when she opened the large doors into the magnificent cathedral was a statue of a young girl in the center of the room with a black fence around her to keep people from getting too close, and chains wrapping around her and binding her to the wall. She stepped as close to the statue as she could and reached out for the young girl's stone face, she looked so sad and so familiar. But she couldn't quite place where she had seen that face before.

"You're here already?" Erika jumped and turned around to look at the speaker. Shugo and Rena stood silhouetted in the doorway; they seemed pretty impressive in that sort of light. "We're late and we're the ones that asked you to come…"

Erika grinned, "It's alright. Do you know who this girl is?" she asked. Shugo and Rena shook their heads, but the blue-eyed Twin Blade had the impression that they thought they knew (although how one can get the impression of things that the person him or herself doesn't know is beyond me).

The two of them stepped into the cathedral and the teenager noticed a third person standing behind them. He was lovely (as most characters in the game are) with a feminine face, white hair, blue eyes, silver armor, and long, elegant white wings. "I hope you don't mind that we brought him along. Balmung might know more about what's going on than we do."

Balmung…where had she heard that name before? "Nice to meet you," common courtesy dictated that Erika say something along those lines (but who nowadays follows common courtesy?). Blamung gave a graceful bow before looking at the statue that had held Erika's attention just moments before. The girl didn't bother asking if he knew who that poor statue was, she could see in his eyes that he did, and that he didn't want to talk about it.

"What exactly is the problem?" Shugo asked.

Rena smacked him playfully on the head, "Didn't you read her e-mail, big brother?"

The boy flushed slightly and looked only fairly embarrassed, "No…" His companions smiled knowingly, judging from their reactions the boy apparently did that sort of thing quite often.

The three of them looked expectantly at Erika, who was becoming nervous with all the attention being paid her. "Well, my friend and I went to this one area but as soon as I took a step the screen starting blipping," (what a wonderful word…) "in and out and I heard this really weird buzzing noise. Then this girl's voice came out and said something like 'you shouldn't be here.' But when it was over, my friend didn't hear the voice. Do you know what that means?"

The newcomers exchanged glances before Balmung spoke; he had a deep, soothing voice that made Erika want to smile. "Could Aura have been contacting her?"

"Aura disappeared when they reprogrammed the game," Rena answered. "Maybe it was a glitch in the game?"

"Or maybe it was a special character event…I mean, it does look like she has a special contest character or something…"

Rena grinned at her brother and placed her hands at her hips, Balmung, too, gave the boy a strange look. "That's what you thought last time, Shugo," Rena said warningly. Once again the boy flushed, but he did not pursue the subject. "I'm sorry we couldn't help you more," the girl said apologetically to the other.

Balmung looked at her oddly and Erika couldn't help but squirm uncomfortably beneath that gaze. "You probably shouldn't tell the Twilight Brigade or the CC Corp…" (not that Erika had any idea what he was talking about). The three of them walked out of the cathedral, leaving the white-haired Twin Blade behind to watch the unmoving statue that had so completely caught her entire interest.