.hack/FRAGMENT
Saya
version 6.0
Aura Lost Above the Sky
new topic posted 11.3.05
The young, dark-haired teenager that was Erika IRL, sat firmly planted in her chair while her mother's voice called to her from the first floor. "I'm going to use the computer!" the girl yelled after a moment, she wasn't listening to anything her mother was saying as things were, so it wasn't as if she would be missing anything (come now, you can't tell me you hadn't zoned out during a parental lecture before).
Almost as soon as Erika logged in, a message for a new e-mail appeared on her screen: it was from Koto. "I spent all night deciphering the coding on that thing, you'd better be grateful. I haven't seen something that complicated in a long time, but it's really odd. It doesn't really do much, I'll start the program and my screen just goes fuzzy and some muffled sound comes through the speakers. Sent an item with the e-mail, 'The World' is still down so use it to get in. Meet me at the place you said you met with Shugo, Balmung, and Rena a while ago."
The teenage girl sighed and pulled her long, dark hair back into a loose bun at the back of her head, so as to keep it out of the way while she placed the headpiece required for the game over her eyes. Slowly, almost tentatively, Erika directed her mouse toward the object included in her friend's e-mail and clicked on it.
Instantly, the screen became a swirl of light and color and Erika found herself standing in the middle of the church, the statue of the girl in chains behind her. The brown-haired, brown-eyed Heavy Blade that the white-haired character had come to know so well over their brief time as friends stood up abruptly from her place seated on one of the benches that lined the cathedral walls in rows.
"Took you long enough, come on!" Koto ran over to the Twin blade and grabbed her wrist, dragging the blue-eyed girl down the aisle. "If we stay here for too long we might get caught. I know how to get to a place that no one will be able to trace…"
Erika leaned her weight back, stopping her friend from dragging the girl off the edge of the bridge that seemed to just break off into nothing. This was the only area of 'The World' that actually had an end. "First, there's something I want you to explain to me." The brunette looked at the other player oddly, almost nervously, but that did not seem possible considering who it was (I'm allowed to be nervous once in a while, aren't I?). "What exactly are you? You aren't a normal player, I can tell that much…"
The Heavy Blade laughed, not her usual laugh though, it was an almost ugly sound (I resent that and I'm the one who wrote it!). "You're right, I'm not," she said with an undercurrent of smooth cunning and confidence that Erika had never noticed before. "I'm the one and only daughter of the infamous hacker, Helba," the white-haired girl gasped. Of course she had heard the name before, especially considering how long she had been playing now. Everyone had heard the name of Helba the hacker, the mysterious woman in white whose face remains always unknown and is rumored to have taken part in every event involving the mysterious 'Key of the Twilight' in the game. That information would have to be confirmed by Balmung and Shugo, of course, but still…
Erika had been expecting something odd, but she had certainly not been expecting her friend to say anything like that. "I'm a hacker as well," that was certainly a give-in. "Does that answer your questions?" Koto asked, her voice and visage returning to normal now that the moment was passed. The Twin Blade nodded her head, unable to speak, and allowed herself to be dragged almost to the edge of the bridge.
Just as it appeared that the two girls would fall off the broken, jagged ledge, a strange, darker kind of Chaos Gate appeared before them, swirling serenely as if there was absolutely nothing wrong with it. The brunette dragged her friend through the intimidating swirl of darkness and they found themselves in an area that looked just as broken as the edge of the bridge. "Welcome to the Net Slums," Koto said proudly as she waved at someone walking by with a television screen on his shoulders rather than a head.
The buildings were falling apart and the sky looked as if the programming running it was still incomplete…in fact, everything about this place looked as if it was still incomplete, a work in progress to say the least (the Net Slums are wonderful if you really look at the place closely enough, not that many people really care to). Koto lead the Twin Blade to an empty alley, not that Erika could be sure considering how the player characters looked as if they had just come out of the scrap heap, and said, "No one will be able to find us here. Grab a look at this, though…"
The hacker sent the file that the two girls had found the previous day over to Erika who double clicked it as soon as the opportunity arose. Rather than what she had been expecting (the fuzzy screen and muffled voice I'd told her about) the character froze and a kind of movie played in the middle of the screen. "What's going on? I can't move!" Erika heard Koto yell, but her voice was softer, quieter than normal, as if the game was trying to muffle her so that they could hear the movie more easily.
The movie played as if it was a recording from a camera seated atop a computer, but the camera seemed almost alive in the way it moved and reacted to the movements of the people it was watching. Two men were alone in a dimly lit room (though that may have just been that dratted camera). One was seated, his legs crossed over each other and his head resting in his one hand as the elbow dug into his thigh. The man was clearly oriental as his dark eyes regarded his companion who stood, seemingly outraged, in front of him.
This other man was clearly not oriental, with his platinum blond hair that shone almost white in the limited lighting that shone through the cracks in the closed blinds. Though his curled blond hair stood out against the seated man's own short, gelled black hair, their brown eyes were almost exactly the same (odd, really). The oriental man spoke calmly from where he was seated, his voice was so level that it sent shivers down Erika's spine (you try listening to that and not imagining the guy showing up at a grocery store and just exploding and pulling out a gun someday…).
"I assume our temporary replacement is almost complete. The game is due back online in a matter of days, we need her until we can relocate Aura…"
The blond man's fists were clenched at his side, "Not completed, Sky will never be complete. She will continue to grow along with 'The World.'"
"You sound as if you expect Sky to become permanent," the oriental man regarded his companion coolly, "remember what her sole purpose is. She is merely a temporary replacement…I'd like you to keep me informed on Sky's progress. I do apologize but I have a meeting I must attend with one of the many men I have searching for Aura" (what a liar, there wasn't even the slightest bit of regret in his voice, then again I probably have no right to talk about liars).
The blond watched with contempt in his brown eyes as the oriental man pushed himself out of his desk chair and sauntered past him out the door. "I don't expect her to become permanent. She will become permanent…"
The screen went temporarily black once more and both girls found themselves once again in full control of their characters. "Please tell me you saw that, too…" Erika pleaded, after all whenever she had heard that strange voice, Koto had not. Maybe this video clip had been something like that.
Koto stared stupidly at her companion, her brown eyes wide and her mouth hanging open. The Twin Blade wondered for only a brief moment how the other girl managed to get that expression, then she remembered the 'hacker' status. "I saw it. But I don't get it…whenever I tried starting up that program nothing happened, now all of a sudden it works…" her voice trailed off and the teenager looked curiously at Erika.
"What?" the white-haired, blue-eyed teenager asked, slightly annoyed. Koto never told her anything that was on her mind, and that was starting to get on the girl's nerves.
The Heavy Blade shook her head, her short brown hair smacking the sides of her face and whipping into her equally brown eyes. "Maybe it's because you opened it this time," at least Koto announced her thoughts aloud rather than keeping them inside, not that the thoughts were very comforting ones on Erika's part anyway. "Never mind, but you know we can't tell anyone about this, right?"
"Can't we give back the file to CC Corp?"
"No way! One look and they'll be able to tell that we decoded it and watched. We can't tell anyone. That includes Balmung, Shugo, Rena, or any other random person you might me in the game or anywhere else. Got it?"
Erika shrugged her shoulders but the look in her eyes was serious when she replied, "Alright." That was all they needed to ensure that the more-than-a-little-bit-confusing information they had just discovered remained secret.