.hack/FRAGMENT
Saya
version 21.0
Still Not Ready to Leave
new topic posted 6.27.06
It looks like I'm your last narrator; can you guess who it is? I should hope so, since there's no one left. AKA: it's uh…Erika. It feels so odd to address myself that way, especially since I haven't used the name in such a long time. Now, you may think that since this is pretty much my story, I'll be able to tell it best. Well…you're wrong. I can't tell this story well at all simply because it's my story, if that makes any sense. I was never much of a fan of autobiographies, or any kind of biographies for that matter.
On the up-side: Koto just sent me an e-mail and she'll be coming back in time for the next update. So you'll have your old narrator back, isn't that wonderful? And no, that was not sarcasm…alright, maybe just a little.
The black-haired teenager was reading through her e-mail with her head resting on the palm of her hand, her elbow firmly planted on her wooden desk. Most people would say it was an uncomfortable position due to where her computer lay, but not Erika. Somehow, she didn't seem to mind this stuff all that much any more. She used to, but lately…well, the girl was pushing her body more and more to annoy it just because it was getting harder and harder to do so.
She had received a message from Blamung, a picture of his avatar hanging just off the side of the screen. "There is news of another file fragment we thought you might be interested in. The area is supposed to be infected, though I'm sure you'll be able to handle it." The key words were a few lines down, ending in the word 'Graveyard.' That was never much of a confidence booster…
The girl checked her friends list to see who was online and smiled at the result before gently placing the headset over her brown-almost-black hair and entering the world of the game.
"What's this urgent business you called us here for," a tall, slightly hunched over Wave Master asked, leaning against her staff.
Erika had e-mailed everyone who was online, which included everyone except Balmung; Shugo; and Rena, and asked them to meet her in her favorite root town, the city of the sea as she liked to call it. She resisted the urge to say something incredibly corny; she would not become her father but that was an entirely different story. "Balmung sent me an e-mail last night, unfortunately I couldn't reply then," she had been busy the previous night, as Death very well knew. She had met him in the hospital and was fairly surprised to see that he looked almost exactly like his avatar in real life.
Koto grinned, "Let me guess, another file fragment?" Was it that obvious? Of course it was, why else would she have gathered the whole team? Erika nodded and the brunette's grin widened, "Wonderful, I was starting to wonder when we'd find another. It's been much too long, a week?"
"Two days, to be precise," the Blade Master responded with a smile.
The Heavy Blade was well-known amongst their little group for having a slight problem with her judgment of time. If nothing much was happening, she exaggerated, if a lot was going on, she shortened it a great deal. "Alright, so I'm not that great at this kind of stuff."
"Or you're horrible at it," said Death, also smiling.
"What is this, make fun of Koto time?" She smacked herself in the forehead for having ever said that. But from the grins exchanged by the other two characters, it was clear that it was exactly what they had been thinking.
Erika cleared her throat in an attempt at regaining some level of control of the situation, complete control over it would have been impossible. "Just grab hold of me, I found out something interesting about that last file…" exchanging odd glances, the other PCs placed their hands on the girl's shoulders, shuffling uncomfortably to make space, and suddenly they disappeared in a flash of golden light.
"That's handy," Koto said after the few moments it had taken her to regain her balance. "No need for a Chaos Gate, though personally I think I'd prefer it. My avatar's having some problems staying up straight."
The white-haired girl looked at her friend, her blue eyes widening with despair. "I'm sorry; I didn't think it would affect your avatars since it didn't do anything to mine."
Death placed a hand gently on the girl's head, the two of them made a nice contrast from each other. "Don't worry about it, she's just having problems because she's Koto."
He grinned at the Heavy Blade who shouted in response, "Oh? As if you aren't having problems, too! You're just using Erika as a support," and with that, she gracefully fell over onto her side.
The boy let an ugly grimace fall onto his features. So that was what he was doing. The white-haired teenager looked over at the two others, currently silent. They were leaning against each other, trying to keep their balance. "I'm sorry. Maybe we should go back and come in through a Chaos Gate."
"What's passed is past," Claire said knowledgeably. "We're already here." A good point; that they were. "Who did you say told you about this area?"
"Balmung," Erika asked, unsurprised by the effect the name had on her friends. Everyone had the same reaction to the man's name, so she was getting used to it. Though, one would think that after all this time, one of them would finally stop acting so strangely at the sound of his name. "He said it was supposed to be one of those infected areas but it seems normal."
And cue the abnormalities. The screen flickered and streams of data flowed upwards into the air from the ground around them. Patches of sky and earth disappeared in skins of purple flowing with data. "What were you saying about 'normal'?" Koto asked sarcastically while Erika was listening for the familiar voice she knew she'd hear. But it didn't come. Usually, when she entered an infected area, she immediately heard Sky's voice, and somehow she felt awkward when it wasn't there.
At the bottom of the dungeon, of course, they entered a room with violet smoke steaming through the cracks of the doors. That was never a good sign. The trip through the dungeon had certainly been an interesting one, with Erika's friends having slight balance trouble. It would have been almost laughable, if it hadn't made things so much more difficult. Now, the girl wondered how they would be able to handle an infected monster.
Despite their protests, and Amaya's complaints, they still had about as much control over their characters as when they had first appeared in the area. The Twin Blade still had her doubts about whether or not they should have left the area and then come back normally. "You guys ready?"
On a positive note, they had stopped relying on each other to keep standing. Finally, they could do what may have possibly passed as standing on their own. They were all on both feet, yes, but wobbling horribly. "Let's get this over with," Koto grumbled.
"There's no point asking," Amaya said, "we're about as ready as we can get considering." Though it was true, Koto and Death responded by giving the girl glares of equal ferocity. She didn't seemed to have noticed, thank goodness. The last thing they needed was an awkward fight amongst characters that could barely function properly.
Without waiting for more of an answer, and afraid that any more of an answer would start a fight, Erika flung open the door and stepped inside, shuddering slightly as the violet steam passed through her. Inside, waiting for them, was a creature with patches of violet data for skin. It turned to face the group and Erika was convinced that she caught a glimpse of what looked like a smirk before it returned to 'normal' and attacked.
With the others slightly incapacitated, the Twin Blade put it upon herself to defeat the monster alone. But tell that to the others, apparently they hadn't gotten the memo. The only one who stayed back was Amaya, and that was to cast both offensive and defensive spells. Not that anyone's attacks did much damage, at least no one's but Erika's. And she was spending most of her time checking the HP meters under her friend's avatars. They would not be dying because of how she had brought them into the area.
After the final blow, just as the creature was disappearing into a flow of data, a silver light floated into Erika's body. That was odd. Usually, they had to open a treasure chest to get the file, and then in turn open the file to have it harmonize with her character. Though, once again, this file appeared to do nothing.
Dark-haired, dark-eyed Erika rang the doorbell, holding a slightly crumpled piece of paper in her hand. This was the address Koto had given her and she certainly hoped this wasn't her friend's idea of a prank.
Koto opened the door wide after a few minutes of awkwardness following the bell and just when the other girl was turning around to leave. "You have no confidence in yourself whatsoever, I hope you're fully aware of that," the brunette said with a familiar, faintly lopsided grin.
"I am a very confident person, just not when it comes to stuff like this."
"You keep telling yourself that," joked Koto who pulled the shorter teenager into the house. "Mom!" she shouted, "we'll be in my room!"
A kindly voice responded from somewhere downstairs, though Erika could see no stairs leading downwards, "have fun. I'm making dinner right now…"
"So be prepared to get sick," Koto whispered to Erika before leading the girl up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Erika, with her much shorter legs, could not do such a thing and so much more slowly she followed her friend up a flight of stairs. Koto's room was as expected of any teenager, though it did have slight differences. There were posters with names and numbers Erika didn't even bother to comprehend, and so much clothes piled onto the floor that she wondered vaguely if there was a floor.
There were also pictures of people she had never seen or heard of taped to the walls and somewhere in the corner was a small piece of white paper, the only white on the walls, that said 'GOALS' in bold lettering. She brushed past Koto's computer, listening only partially to what her friend was saying, on her way to the paper. But as Erika walked past the computer, she was instantly surrounded by a glowing golden light not unlike that of a Chaos Gate.
"Um…Koto…is this normal?" she asked before disappearing inside 'The World.'