(1) null \ adjective
…
2: amounting to nothing; nil
3: having no value; insignificant
…
(2) null \ noun
1: zero …
– Excerpt from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary
I
She'd never really cared for this kind of music.
Yes, she was aware, 'to each their own', but music was supposed to be pleasing to the ears—to soar on her breath, tug on her heartstrings. Not to thud-thud-thud in her ears the way it was now—causing her to squish her eyes shut so as to ward off the impending migraine. Even the private booth she was seated in offered little comfort from the noise outside.
The lights and colors weren't helping much either. Such things were wonderful in moderation—but here, they were nothing so much as an assault upon the senses. Beams of white and purple, green and red—even some colors she could not readily identify—flickered and flashed in patterns her eyes had quickly given up trying to memorize. Yet the many figures outside her booth—not all of which were human, or even humanoid—continued to cheer and dance raucously to the thud-thud-thud that continued to pound in her brain and blood, stamping their feet in a cadence that only redoubled this omnipresent excuse of a melody.
She checked the clock on her Duel Disk—just past eight-thirty. Night would be falling soon.
I can't stay here for much longer.
She bit her lip, scanning what little of the dance floor she could make out from her booth. "Where are you?" she whispered …
Den City
Thirty minutes ago
Zaizen Aoi sighed, wholly content, though shivering slightly as she felt the apartment's air-conditioning wash over the wet skin that wasn't covered by her towels.
The sun was setting; Aoi often liked to watch it when the days were warm, and the skies clear. It was, in her mind, perhaps the best perk available to her stepbrother Akira's residence—with the possible exception, she thought, of the shower from which she'd just left. She guessed that she'd spent just long enough in there that by the time she dried herself off and dressed herself for bed, the last few rays would be arcing across the sky, providing a wonderful view across the downtown skyline.
She decided to check the time, just to be sure. Her Duel Disk was laying on the nearest end table by the sofa—but Aoi drew back momentarily when she saw that the screen was flashing.
Someone was messaging her—or had already tried.
This was a concern; Akira had made it very clear after the business with the Knights of Hanoi that Aoi needed to be very careful about whom she revealed her personal information to. She'd done her best to follow through on that end—though there were still a special few people who knew of her online presence as well as her real one, and therefore, which Duel Disk to contact her on.
She picked up the device, frowning. The contact information was no help at all, saying simply "Unknown". That was bad enough for her nerves, but the four words perched at the top of the chat window that had opened up on the screen sent Aoi's eyebrows straight into her brown hair:
Are you Blue Angel?
She bit her lip. The message seemed innocuous enough—probably from another love-struck fan of hers—but Aoi had been taken advantage of by a person who'd claimed to be a fan before.
There's one way to find out. "Scramble code 77," she muttered, pressing a switch on her Duel Disk. Her voice, quiet as it was, echoed in the apartment enough that the voice-activated software inside the device picked it up easily. "Care of the graveyard shift."
The screen fuzzed and blipped for the briefest of moments. When it was over, a second window had appeared alongside the first one—similarly marked as "Unknown".
Another push of a button toggled the dictation function. "I need you to look into this for me," Aoi said swiftly, dragging the four words of mystifying text into the second window, then transmitting them. "Take your time."
She took her time as well. Five minutes passed while she dried herself off fully, and she'd stepped into some exceptionally comfy pajamas by the time her contact replied back.
IP's not registered with any entity even remotely linked to the Knights, the chat window said. Clean enough for me.
Aoi did not speak for a long moment. " … What should I tell them?" she eventually asked. "Should I even bother?"
It took much less time for her contact to reply back this time—and when they did, there was a noticeable amount of amusement, even with its lack of voice.
When was the last time you had to deal with fan mail? :)
Aoi resisted the urge to roll her golden-brown eyes. "Okay, fair point. … But Blue Angel was a long time ago."
Oh, don't be dramatic, said the window. That's all this is—a fan wanting to talk to her idol. Or his. Boys can like cute things, too.
Aoi glared at the screen. "That's what worries me," she said flatly. She knew all too well what happened the last time she'd been in that situation before. Getting possessed by a viral card, rendered comatose by the aftereffects—and finally being turned into raw data after that—tended to make such memories stick.
Those memories, evidently, were still in sharp focus for her contact as well. Got me there, said the chat window with what Aoi could only assume was a digital shrug. I'll keep watch. Don't worry. :)
For some reason, seeing those words pop up on her screen brought a rare, brief smile to Aoi's face; knowing that there were people out there who wanted to protect her and care for her meant a great deal to her. Akira in particular had risen to the occasion with magnificence after their parents' death—even if, she amended, he'd had to bend or break the law a few times to help the both of them survive.
However, while Akira would always be a decade her senior, Aoi was also sixteen—so she was more than capable of taking care of herself, regardless of what anyone might say to the contrary. Streaming her Duels online brought in enough revenue that it helped pay for at least her share of the rent in this apartment—and it was her hope that, eventually, she'd be able to make enough from that career to start finding her own place to live.
Perhaps, if she was lucky, she'd do it all without even having to rely on Akira as well.
She walked into her bedroom on that note, closed the door, and perched herself on the bed inside; it was always recommended to make sure you were somewhere quiet and comfortable before logging into the cyber-universe of LINK VRAINS. Even if you didn't do much more than take part in chat rooms or spectating Duels, the immersive nature of the environment exhausted the senses, and even the body as well. More than once, Aoi herself had fallen asleep within moments of logging out after a particularly strenuous round of Charisma Duels.
It was with this knowledge that she raised her Duel Disk to her breast, and took a deep breath.
"INTO THE VRAINS!"
She watched the screen glow brighter than ever, watched the streams of light and data begin to coalesce around her—watched her almond-brown hair transform into the vivid blue locks that had become her namesake—
—and half an hour later, she'd found herself in the midst of a rave and that disagreeable thud-thud-thudding music, feeling that immersive nature of cyberspace closing in around her with all the comfort of a wet blanket.
Blue Girl had been waiting in this chat room-cum-nightclub for nearly half that long, ever since she'd been directed by her benefactor to head there. That had been spurred on by a follow-up message her mysterious so-called "fan" had sent shortly after she'd logged in:
Can we meet at Server Six tonight? Alone?
There's something I want to ask you. I promise that's all.
The notion of meeting anyone alone, fan or otherwise, was not a welcome prospect for any Charisma Duelist with a large following—and less so for Blue Girl. But she noted that the messenger had not picked out either a time or a place to meet. Perhaps it was meant to be a gesture of good faith, to let her pick the terms for their meeting. But after a brief conference, she'd accepted—on the one condition that they do so within a server and chat room her benefactor would choose in secret.
This server was one of the more popular in LINK VRAINS, so she'd been told—which meant it was that much harder to be overheard, or to be policed by the moderators that moved through the crowds of humans, animals, robots, and all digital avatars in between like burly shadows—digital bouncers to a one.
The Charisma Duelist had no idea what might warrant being overheard by the wrong person—let alone by a mod—in an encounter like this. She had been assured that this person, whoever it was, was clean as a whistle. Perhaps it was for something more private—in which case, it did nothing to sooth her nerves.
A knock sounded on her booth just then. "Someone to see you," grunted a voice that might or might not have been one of the omnipresent mods. Immediately, she tensed.
The privacy curtain fluttered aside, and someone stepped in—a girl, barely Blue Girl's own age and height, if even that. She glanced up for a better look, just quickly enough to catch a brief flash of aquamarine from the girl's eyes, before they darted away to focus on the floor with the air of a person who, for whatever reason, didn't want to look anywhere else—let alone speak even a word as to why. Chest-length, platinum blonde hair spilled down from her head so untidily that she wondered if maybe the girl had sprinted across half of cyberspace just to find this place.
Her clothes looked in considerably better shape—though this was no doubt due to the fact that these were merely woven from data, not cloth, and therefore much more durable. The outfit reminded Blue Girl of a school uniform—though it was not the one she herself wore to Den City High School; where hers was slate and white with bits of blue, this uniform was almost purely either white or black, trimmed with gold, with thigh-high stockings pulled up to where they were mere inches from her skirt.
Blue Girl's immediate impression was of a girl suffering from either a painful level of shyness, or a case of nerves that must have taken a great deal of courage to surpass in just coming here. A quick scan of the data composing her avatar revealed very little evidence of cosmetic customization—meaning that whoever this was, this was roughly how she appeared in real life; therefore, despite her awkwardness, she was somehow comfortable enough with her appearance to port it into LINK VRAINS—or, perhaps, had either no means or no reason to change it.
The thud-thud-thudding music faded away now, replaced by a much slower, synthesizer-heavy beat. The relative drop in noise gave Blue Girl the chance to get the first word in edgewise before her throat would make her regret it.
"So … are you the person who was talking to me half an hour ago?"
A nod—but nothing further. "Who are you?" Blue Girl inquired.
It was hard to tell in the light, but she thought she might have seen the girl's lips move. She frowned. "Mute chat room—set profile to DM only," she muttered, apparently to thin air—causing the noise from the rave outside to instantly become more muffled, allowing for a greater degree of communication between her and the stranger.
"Sorry about that—I hope this is better," she said to the girl. "Did you say something just now?"
She had, as it turned out. "Nobody," came the faint whisper. " … I'm nobody."
That suspicion of 'painful level of shyness' was beginning to look like more of a certainty. Still … "Do I … know you from somewhere?" Blue Girl asked.
The girl shook her head. "I … don't think so," she mumbled. " … I've watched you stream a lot of your Duels." A pause. "You have very pretty monsters."
It was hard to keep her cheeks from flushing at the compliment, Blue Girl thought. "Thanks," she smiled. Feeling as though she should at least show some generosity in return, she gestured around the booth. "Do you feel like sitting down?"
Another nod; moments later, the girl slowly took a seat directly across from her. Her eyes were practically glued to the tabletop. The Charisma Duelist was about to wonder if she'd zoned out all of a sudden before her guest spoke again.
"So … are you Blue Angel?"
It was Blue Girl's turn to nod this time, but: "I … actually go by Blue Girl these days. I took up a … side job recently that's been cutting into my streaming time. That's why my avatar looks different."
" … Oh." She didn't need the privacy filter around the booth to hear the girl's disappointment—but a faint glimmer of hope yet remained within her words. " … Could you … maybe … be Blue Angel again?"
For the first time, her aquamarine eyes met Blue Girl's own. "I … thought you were very pretty as Blue Angel, too."
The words tumbled from her mouth, and her cheeks were a bright, boiling red. Blue Girl doubted she was feeling much more composed; it was rare for anyone to tell her to her face how pretty she looked while inside LINK VRAINS. Playmaker certainly hadn't bothered complimenting her on that level! she thought.
"That's very kind of you to say that," she smiled, before bringing out the Duel Disk clasped to her wrist. "One sec."
A few skillful clicks and drags across the rounded screen sent another wave of data rocketing across her skin; she felt her blue hair lengthening, down to her chest and just past, before twirling itself into twin ponytails. Her clothes were expanding as well, increasing in mass as they bloomed from her waist frill by frill, then past her hips like the petals of a flower—
She took note of the girl's widening eyes as the transformation began to complete itself—time to get into character, she thought as the data waves began to recede from her flesh—
"Ta-da!"
There was just enough room in the booth for her to pull a simple twirl on her toes as the glow of cyber-spatial energy faded away completely—and then Blue Angel stood where Blue Girl had once been, finishing the spectacle with a wave, a wink, and a simple majokko pose for good measure.
By now, her guest's eyes were as wide as saucers, and her mouth had rearranged itself into a perfectly round O. Blue Angel couldn't resist a giggle at the comical expression.
"So!" She twirled round again. "Better?"
It took a while for the gawking girl to nod in reply. " … Y-yeah," she stammered, before catching herself and blinking rapidly. "Sorry … I didn't mean to stare. You're just … really pretty."
"That's all right," Blue Angel told her, winking again and smiling reassuringly. "What's your name?"
The girl's face deflated so suddenly that the Charisma Duelist swore she heard a hiss of escaping air. "I … I already told you," she murmured. "I'm nobody."
Blue Angel didn't buy it. "Oh, nonsense—don't say that! Everybody's somebody in LINK VRAINS!"
The girl blinked slowly at this. It was true, Blue Angel thought—the sky was the limit as far as avatar customization within this cyber-universe. People like Akira or Onizuka Gō might choose to make their avatars unchanged from how they looked in real life—others, like Playmaker, might only change enough of their appearance to make them unrecognizable—while some went all out, hoping to test the limits on just how unique their digital selves could be—
" … Rei."
She needed to cup an ear to be sure she'd heard correctly. "My name's Rei," mumbled the girl.
Blue Angel didn't ask if that was her real name or her online name—more than likely it was the latter, if she was behaving this awkwardly towards her. "Well, it's nice to meet you, Rei!" she said cheerfully, extending a hand. "I love your avatar!"
It took a few long moments for "Rei" to shake her hand back. " … Thanks," she whispered, her cheeks still pink as she gazed at the curtain around them. "It's … really basic, actually. OTPs don't give you a lot of options to change the way you look."
An OTP? Blue Angel blinked. "You logged into LINK VRAINS with a one-time passcode?" she asked, caught a little off guard. "Just to have a private chat session with me?"
A nod. "Why?"
"I've … already got a profile," Rei replied. "I just … spectate or walk around most of the time, though. Dueling here costs … um … extra with my service provider—a lot extra. Passcodes like this are the cheapest way to … to really enjoy this place.
"And besides," she added, her already quiet voice growing more hushed by the second, "I don't want people to know I'm here."
Blue Angel felt her smile sliding down her face. Uh-oh. "Why not?" she asked, worried. "Are you in trouble?"
"N-no!" Rei waved her hands erratically—the most she'd moved in her seat up to that point—but just as quickly, she was as shy and awkward as before. "Um … no. Nothing like that—I just … don't want people to see me here."
There was the faint sound of a gulp. "You probably know by now, I'm not as, um … open as you are"—that was an understatement, thought the Charisma Duelist—"and if I want to talk to someone … I don't want anyone else to listen in. My friends can be … nosy, sometimes. If they knew I was here … or anyone else saw me and told them … they'd pester me until they either knew who I was … or why I came at all."
Blue Angel nodded. "I can see that," she said sympathetically, smiling at Rei in the hopes of bolstering her spirits enough that she could answer her next question. "So—why did you come here, then?"
Rei hunched in her seat, curling her body almost into a ball. It was impossible for Blue Angel to see her lips move against her knees, but the booth was quiet enough for her to at least hear a whisper of indistinct noise from her.
"What was that?"
Rei took a breath. "I … I want to Duel you."
Blue Angel tilted her head. Not only was that the last answer she'd expected, but Rei had gone through a lot of trouble just to tell her those five words. People challenged each other to Duels to their faces all the time—both in the real world and in cyberspace—and were often hotheaded about it in both cases.
" … Hm." It was all she could say for a moment. Then, after a quick thought: "Well, this isn't a 'no', Rei—but I usually send out or reply to invites from people I want to Duel whenever I'm streaming. You could have just waited to challenge me until I started recording my next VOD and sent out one of those invites—why tell me this here?"
The girl shrunk in her seat again. Her teal eyes were gazing out towards the rave that still swirled and thudded around them. Blue Angel followed her line of sight—and instantly answered her own question.
"Oh." She looked back Rei. "I get it now. Stage fright?"
Another nod. No wonder Rei doesn't like people knowing she's in LINK VRAINS, Blue Angel thought; her friends and classmates must pressure her to Duel almost constantly, both in and out of cyberspace. Maybe they meant the best for her—it could just be that they were trying to be supportive and encouraging of her Dueling abilities … except they didn't know how much stress all this pressure was causing her in the process.
Well—there was a simple answer to that. "That's actually fine by me, Rei. I've got no problem with wanting to set up something a little more private for a change."
Below the table, where Rei couldn't see, the Charisma Duelist traced her Duel Disk with a finger as she spoke, feeling for a special surface on the flower-like construction. Within seconds she found it—under the blue gem that generated her interactive Deck and Graveyard Zones—and covertly pressed the hidden switch beneath it.
This action done, Blue Angel turned her full attention back to their conversation. "So—why do you want to Duel me?" she asked.
"You … already told me," whispered Rei. Before Blue Angel could look properly confused, she explained, "'Everybody's somebody in LINK VRAINS.' Those were your words—and that's why I … like watching you Duel," she added. "I'm just a nobody … but you … you make me want to be somebody. Somebody like you."
Somewhere in Den City, a thousand emotions that no amount of data could accurately reproduce were dancing inside Blue Angel. "That's … that's one of the most amazing things I've ever heard anyone tell me," she said, feeling like she was about to burst into tears—and to heck with all the sappiness that implied—
—before the last three words promptly registered in her brain. "Wait—somebody like me?"
Rei nodded again.
"You're telling me … you want to be a Charisma Duelist?"
" … Mm-hm."
Now Blue Angel was pleasantly surprised—it wasn't often that she got to talk shop with anyone, real world or otherwise. Charisma Duelists were, by and large, celebrities within LINK VRAINS, and more often than not liked to keep their real lives private to ward off undue attention, like her. So to encounter another person who wanted to be a Charisma Duelist—and who'd issued a challenge to her in almost the same breath—felt like a once-in-a-blue-moon opportunity for her.
"The first thing you should know," she said, "is that it takes more than skill in Dueling to be a Charisma Duelist, Rei. You've got to have … well, charisma. Presentation—a reason for people to want to watch your Duels and streams. Otherwise, you're just another Duelist. A-a very good one, I'm sure," she hastily amended, seeing Rei's face droop an inch, "just not an … entertaining one."
She wondered if that was the right word to have chosen—the last thing Blue Angel wanted was for this girl to register any of her advice as insulting, thus losing her an opponent before their Duel had even begun.
"Would you teach me?"
"Hmm?" Blue Angel blinked, certain she'd misheard Rei—but no: "If I beat you … w-would you teach me charisma?"
Blue Angel privately thought that that wasn't a simple thing to ask of her—things like charisma and presentation, where they applied to Dueling, varied from person to person. Often, it wasn't a matter of whether you had it, but how you applied it. To give herself some time to think, she decided to voice the obvious follow-up question.
"What if I beat you? What would happen then?"
Rei shrugged. "I've got a one-time passcode, remember?" Her voice seemed resigned to the worst already. "If I lose, I'll log out of LINK VRAINS, and that'll be the end of it. I'll go to bed a nobody, and wake up a nobody … the same nobody I was before."
Blue Angel had to suppress a knowing smirk. "Until you get your hands on another passcode? Another way into LINK VRAINS, and everything it lets you do?" She leaned in close. "Everything it lets you become?"
With each question, Rei's eyes became more and more intent to look everywhere else besides Blue Angel. And yet—though this may have been a trick of the light, or some strange quirk of LINK VRAINS trying to simulate emotion—there was a spark within those aquamarine eyes that the Charisma Duelist was sure hadn't been there before. She could almost read the battle that must be taking place inside this girl's mind, wherever in Den City she might reside—that this was a chance that happened perhaps once in a whole lifetime: a one-on-one chat, and even a Duel, with one of her biggest idols, if not the biggest out there.
She grinned—they could hash out details of who won or lost when they came to it. "C'mon," she offered, standing up from her seat. "I know someplace where we can have ourselves a nice, private Duel—just the two of us. If you want," she added with a wink, "I'll even let you pick out the location. Call it a freebie from me."
Rei's eyes went wide. "I … I don't know. I mean, I-I still want to Duel you," she stammered, "but … I don't think my passcode gives me access to anything except the basic environment."
Hm. Blue Angel hadn't thought of that. Because LINK VRAINS was exclusive to Den City, the old version of it had included many simulations of real-life locations, like Paris or Rome, so that Duelists could experience those locations without needing to travel to them in the first place. That had suffered extreme damage after the Knights of Hanoi had attacked, however, to the point that a new version of the immersive Dueling platform had to be made, one without the reproductions, and was therefore a strictly fantastical location that had no grounding in the real world.
Although … Akira had mentioned in passing once that his company was beta-testing such locations for use in the new LINK VRAINS. With Speed Duels no longer forbidden, there were special racetracks throughout the realm where they could be conducted in a controlled space, with markers that could respawn Duelists if they veered too far off course, D-Boards and all. The thought of such Duels taking place in the streets of Monte Carlo, or the hoodoos and natural arches of Bryce Canyon, was an intriguing one indeed for Blue Angel.
But it wasn't so tempting as to make her want to break into her brother's files to access those locations—so Blue Angel decided to compromise. She raised her fingers, drawing them through the air; lines of data snaked out from them at right angles, crisscrossing to form a grid—and then a map of the entire LINK VRAINS, which Blue Angel then projected onto the table to form a three-dimensional representation of the entire platform.
Before an awed Rei could respond, the Charisma Duelist snapped her fingers. A series of glowing dots spilled over the whole of that map, blanketing entire sectors of the cyber-realm, though only peppering others—and some only had one or two pinpoints of light to their name, if any at all.
"Here's the location of every user logged into LINK VRAINS right now," she explained to the girl. She gestured to the part of the map that looked the most densely populated at present; two dots were flashing on-and-off so closely together as to almost totally overlay with one another. "And here's where we are right now.
"Now, I masked my IP address before I got here," Blue Angel continued, "so that anybody we didn't know wouldn't be able to intrude on our conversation. After that, it's all up to you. I can already guess you want to find the place with the least amount of people present, just to be safe—but from there, I'll let you choose where to take our Duel."
Rei stared at the map for a long time, her teal eyes drinking it in, searching for an ideal place. Finally, she pointed at a spot in the northwestern corner: one of the more remote sectors of the platform, Blue Angel noted—empty but for a simple Duel track, more akin to a motorsports road course than a roller coaster, with a few pathable islands to link parts of the circuit together. There were no dots—no avatars—for nearly three whole sectors in every direction.
Perfect. "You want to do a Speed Duel, then?"
Rei nodded. "Yeah. I-I've never tried it before, but … I don't know," she said, with a weak little laugh. "The more time I spend with you, the more I feel like I … like I should. I-I don't think I'll be any good, though."
"Let's not worry about that right now," soothed Blue Angel. "So—are you ready, then?"
Another nod. Blue Angel couldn't help but giggle at that. "Here's another freebie for you, Rei," she told her. "If you want to be a Charisma Duelist—then you've got to show me you want to be one." She finished this with a cutesy wink that she reserved for when she really wanted to draw in her audience.
Rei stood there for a few long moments before the thought occurred to her that perhaps Blue Angel was waiting for her to do something. Her eyes widened, and she made a silent "oh!" with her mouth before looking round, as if to make sure no one else was looking. But she need not have worried, Blue Angel thought—another song had struck up again while they had been talking, and the bass beat that throbbed against her bones was loud enough that no one in the rave outside could possibly overhear them now.
Finally, Rei cleared her throat, and took a deep breath. "Blue Angel!" she called out, her voice louder than it had ever been before. "I challenge you!"
That's more like it! Even as Blue Angel grinned in anticipation, a black-and-red bracelet she knew to be a Duel Disk had materialized on Rei's left wrist.
"INTO THE VRAINS!"
No sooner had Rei cried out the last three words than their avatars began to fritz and distort, glowing with multicolored lights as the two girls were transported to their venue, and the battle to come …
A/N: Shout-out to "GM-san" for helping to pre-read this thing.
This is only going to be a one-time experiment, for those of you wondering why I'm stepping off my usual fare for a change. Sometimes I have those ideas that refuse to go away until I put pen to paper. This is hardly the first such occasion, either—and I doubt it will be the last.
I'm expecting this to last about three chapters—four at the most. The second one should be up over the weekend, and will kick off the Duel proper. Time will tell on updates from there.
Until then, rate and review at your leisure—and thanks for reading! – K
