"Everything you can imagine is real." ~Pablo Picasso
PROLOGUE
Real Virtuality
If there was one thing that made Royce Oliver hate her brother more than she already did, it was his death.
Heart attack, the overpaid and overweight coroner had said, then he added, the technical term is myocardial infarction. Some of the arteries that supply the heart with blood get clogged up and the heart doesn't get enough oxygen so it sort of dies a quick death, and the man looked at her and her father patronizingly as if he were actually elucidating things for them when in fact he explained nothing at all. Heart attack. Myocardial infarction. What did it matter if the doctor said her brother had died of a unicorn attack? She'd still be no closer to really understanding what happened to him, and he'd still be dead.
Because even if the official cause of Rollo Oliver's death was supposedly a heart attack, it didn't explain his last words:
"Royce… God, Royce… help me! The OCULUS, take it off! The game… it's… it's killing-"
Anyway.
Thinking back on it, it was almost funny. Virtual reality games were supposed to give you a shot at another life. A second existence, of sorts. It was the basis of their market. 'Live another life in this fantastical world of so and so', and all that jazz. And now Rollo didn't have any life at all, his existence snuffed out by a goddamned game that was supposed to give him more of it.
Talk about irony.
The game killed him, of that she was absolutely certain. She didn't give a rat's ass what everyone else said. No healthy sixteen-year-old boy would have his heart suddenly give out on him, not if he didn't have any congenital heart malformations or the genetic predisposition for heart problems.
Unreal Engines (the company that created OCULUS) had of course cleared themselves of all blame, saying that there had never been any injuries or casualties at all recorded in the whole history of people using OCULUS devices. Although arguably the sample population had never been big to begin with, because not everyone can buy the ludicrously expensive OCULUS devices (OD's, they called them), but it still stood that nobody had ever been harmed by OD's in the history of ever. Nobody.
Only Rollo. And of course they would never admit any connection to that. The bastards didn't get rich by being stupid.
Unfortunately.
It was inevitable: her father lost the suit against Unreal Engines, and his wallet suffered quite a lot from it, since it wasn't nice to sue the company you were basically one of the owners of (although not quite, being a shareholder wasn't exactly like owning the company itself). Unreal Engines sued back for defamation and demanded a ridiculous amount of money for compensation, which led to Royce's father losing even more money. Not that Royce ever cared about that. Money was necessary to survive, yes, but any more than that was just luxury, which she had long decided was unnecessary. So she had no qualms about her father's fifty-something bank accounts being bumped down a million dollars or two. She'd lived and dressed like a hobo anyway, even back when she was still basically a multimillionaire princess.
So in the end the "official" story was that Rollo had died of a heart attack while playing a VR game on his OCULUS. The journalists and reporters went with the idea that because Rollo was an "avid gamer," he must have had a sedentary lifestyle. They'd all but called him a couch potato.
... Which Royce knew was complete and utter bullshit. There was no healthier - or more health conscious - sixteen-year-old in the planet than Rollo Oliver. He jogged every morning. He ate stupid "healthy" food - salads and boiled chicken breasts and unsalted peanuts that Royce discovered long ago tasted like shit. He swam ten-ish laps in the olympic-sized pool in their backyard every night. He did triathlons for fun, for crissakes.
Royce knew she shouldn't dwell on it. God knew how many head doctors – all her dad's friends, of course – had told her to do her best to move on, to live on, to just… get past the misery of it all. And as much as it was the logical step to "move on," Royce just couldn't. At all. Not when Rollo's last words were so strange. Not when the biochemical tests to prove the diagnosis of a myocardial infarction were "inconclusive." Not when the last thing he ever said was a cry for help.
A cry for her help.
With a shudder, Royce shook herself out of her morbid thoughts. In her hands was an OCULUS. Not the same one her brother had… well, died in, this was her own device. OCULUS devices were expensive as hell – after all it was the pioneer in virtual reality platforms and the device where one can play N.A.R.P.G, the first five-sensory-input VR game ever – but since her father was a major shareholder of UNREAL ENGINES INC., the company that created the OCULUS and eventually N.A.R.P.G, he got a bunch of free OCULUS devices to test N.A.R.P.G. with. They even gave her dad this one chip of a limited edition version of N.A.R.P.G., which supposedly had in-game freebies.
Rollo, being the computer-savvy technogeek that he was, couldn't wait to try it out.
Unfortunately for him, that freebie turned out to be his death.
Royce slipped the OCULUS over her head – the helmet-like device humming softly like an everlasting exhale – and before she could chicken out, she lay on the GELax (a gel bed side-purchase with the OCULUS, which was designed to ensure the safety of a person's body while playing a VR game), and switched the OCULUS on.
… OCULUS
… OCULUS® is a registered trademark of Unreal Engines, registered in the US and other countries. The OCULUS logo, and other trademarks are the property of Unreal Engines. You may not use the logo or the logo's custom typeface for commercial purposes without the express permission of Unreal Engines.
… Welcome|
… (1) Programs available|
… Naruto: A Role-Playing Game selected|
… Game start in 5|
… 4|
… 3|
… 2|
… 1|
A/N: So... uh, I've noticed that in a lot of SI fics it's not really explained how the main character gets transported to the Naruto world, exactly. They just... well, DIE, and all of a sudden they're reborn into it or placed in a toddler's body or something, which decidedly explains NOTHING AT ALL ABOUT HOW THEY GOT THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE. I mean, okay, so you die. Then your soul gets magically transported into the Naruto world. But HOW? The how of things is very important, y'all. Maybe this is just me being all anal-retentive or whatever,but I can't seem to take seriously SI fics in which the main character just completely dissociates from his/her previous life, where all of a sudden all that he/she gives a shit about are things related to the Naruto story... because THAT DOES NOT HAPPEN TO PEOPLE. SI characters who just stop giving a shit about the life they left behind are just not realistic, yo. Unless that character's just got a case of some serious psychosis, that is. Or maybe the SI character was never meant to be realistic, such as in crack fics, in which case it's totally fine (because CRACK fics aren't meant to be taken seriously at all).
There you have it. My first-chapter-rant. Tell me what you think (in reaction to the first chappie or my note, whatever)! Reviews are puppies! (AND I WANT A FEW HUNDRED PUPPIES. JUST SAYIN'.)