Aura's eyes flickered as she scanned over the message she had sent to BlackRose. The subject line made her flinch. She was what the live-folk would call, 'fear-mongering'. It had been an accident, though. The true subject was supposed to be, NEED HELP SERVER DYING, but she was sure that the level-headed dot-hackers would be able to figure out the meaning without freaking out.

Maybe it was right to be fearful, though. Whenever she tried to send Kite an email, it would bounce back with a message stating that the account was no longer active. Her false hormones had reacted at that, throwing her into a moodswing of legendary proportions. Poor Sheraton had been forced to flee to Net Slum, while Mia had laughed herself silly and teleported herself to Mac Anu. After an hour Mia had returned, pointing out that The World was a paid service, and that it was very possible that Kite - not having any interest in returning - had cancelled his account in order to save for whatever teenage males bought.

"During your freak out, I decided I'd look through various surveys on the web. Apparently males in his age group - and I'm getting this from his inactive account page - purchase things such as video games and condoms. Though some websites that I found were... less than sophisticated... I think I found all of the hot spots for the teenage male speciman." Though her face remained straight, her eyes and tail told a different story. Aura decided not to further press her for any of that information, deciding instead to send an email to his partner BlackRose. At least her account was still active.

"Where's Sheraton, Mia? Could you find him for me? Please?" Her voice was full of determination, though it was quieter than a mouse. Mia flicked her ear, amused.

"What do you want with that sourpuss that you can't get with me? I happen to be the most knowledgable about humankind, if you didn't know. He just sits in the bottom of dungeons, ranting about wanting to find an answer or something. Apparently BlackRose was the fourth one to figure out the riddle, though she thought it actually proved her big conspiracy theory was right or something like that," Mia waved her hand around, rolling her eyes, "It was purely coincidence that it was from the Epitaph. It could have been from Mother Goose or-"

"Mia. Please." Her already weary voice sounded even wearier. Mia nodded, shutting up instantly and warping to Net Slum. As soon as she departed the room lurched forward with a loud 'thud'. Aura sighed. This quake had been larger than the one just hours ago.

"Please Kite, return to me. Just until this is over. Then you never have to return again."

"-so I dunno what it means! Why do you think Aura's dying again? Is Skeith back? What about Mia? Elk will be-"

"Akira."

"...Yes?"

"Slow down, okay? Now, start from the beginning." His voice crackled over the line. Akira felt an unfamiliar rage swell within her. Why was he being so calm?

"Kenji... Aura is dying. That's what the message said." There was a rush of crackling. He was sighing or roaring. Akira couldn't really tell. After a few minutes of silence, his voice returned.

"I'm looking over the email, Akira, and I can't understand any of it. It's worse than the emails she used to send me when I still played. Which begs this question; why do you still have your account active?" Damn. He had caught her.

"Well, uh, I mean..."

"Have you been playing again?" He sounded amused. He was probably smirking, too. She just wanted to wipe off whatever smarmy expression he had on. It wasn't even like she was actually playing, anyway! She had just reactivated her account that month so that Kazu could clean her character off and take whatever loot and money she had left over.

"Look, it was pure coincidence that my account was up this month. But we're getting distracted here. What about Aura?" Kenji seemed a little too calm about the situation. Two years ago he would have been doing everything in his power to solve the message. Of course, that had been when Yasuhiko had been in a coma and BlackRose had been breathing down his neck. Thinking about it, he did probably deserve a break of about ten years.

"I want to help, but I'm not going to get worked up about some email I can't even understand."

"But-"

"Akira, please. I'll email Takumi and Daigoro and meet you at the usual spot, okay? I'll bring Yasuhiko and you can bring Mrs. Kurokawa and Kazu, and we'll figure this out. So calm down; Aura can wait one more day." He still sounded annoyingly calm.

"Okay..."

"So, you had your play tonight, right?" Kenji's voice turned playful. He knew how much she had rued the day she had to go up on stage.

"Ugh, I don't even want to talk about it." Akira forced herself to give an air of finality that Kenji respected. He only laughed, though it was the kind of laugh that made her feel warm inside rather than hurt.

"That bad, huh?"

"Yeah, and-"

"Akira, get off the phone and go to bed!"

"Yes ma'am!" Sometimes she hated her mother. Why couldn't she understand that she was eighteen now, not five? She returned to the phone.

"Hey Kenji, I have to go."

"Oh yeah, you have a phone curfew." Akira rolled her eyes. It sounded so childish coming from Kenji, and he was two years younger than her!

"Well, good night."

"'Night, Akira. Sweet dreams." With that the phone clicked off. Her hand lingered on it for a few seconds, debating mentally if she wanted to break the rules and call him again. Finally she decided that getting on her mother's bad side wasn't worth anything, and flipped open her cell to email Mrs. Kurokawa. After making sure the email hadn't bounced, she crawled into bed and closed her eyes.

Tomorrow was going to be a long day.

A/N: Wow, Kite was out of character in this chapter, huh? Actually, so was BlackRose. Don't worry, they'll be back in character in a bit. Kite's still getting over the whole Pluto Again incident, even though it's been two years. Reality is going to crash into him pretty soon xD

And I love writing Mia. She's so snarky and likes to twist her words to mean so many different things. We'll be seeing her interact with Elk in a chapter or two, as well as reuniting with Kite and BlackRose (though she barely remembers the latter).

Also, Kite is sixteen and BlackRose is eighteen in this, so I kind of screwed around with the timeline a bit. All the names used (except for Kite's and Balmung's) are the official names according to the .hack wiki.