Disclamer: I do not in any way shape or form own .hack or its characters.

Notes: Ages- Tsukasa, Mimiru, Kite, BlackRose, Mistral, Mireille, Subaru - around 16 or 17.

Sora, Crim, Silver Knight, Ouka- late 20's

BT, Sanjuro, Helba, Moonstone, Nuke, Rachel Bear- Late 30's

Hotaru, Reki, A-20, Ryoko Terajima- around 7 or 8

This is my first fan fic ever written, so review with constructive criticism. FYI, constructive criticism is when you tell the person what they are doing wrong and how to fix it; not just telling a person that they suck and have make a bunch of mistakes.

I'm sorry for making you wait so long, I have a couple of good excuses. 1) I've been busy with school and other stuff lately. 2) I wanted to take my time with this chapter and make it really good because I felt that the last chapter was horrible. Please forgive me and enjoy.

Summary: An alternate universe where the game characters from dothack are not game characters, but real people. It is not part of a game, but reality itself. Tsukasa is a parentless child living in the city of Dun Loireag. After having an unusual field adventure will his classmates, his boring life starts to change, but will it be for better or worse?

Reviews: Please review me if you like this story, reviews will give me insentive to create new chapters and or stories.

Returns to nothing, this world of shadowless ones.

Never to return, the shadowed ones

who quests for the Twilight Dragon.

"Epitaph of Twilight" (Fragment)

DotHack: Reality ch. 6

By: TsukasaTheFominian

The group now traveled down a road in Dun Loireag in silence, Mimiru still wondering why Tsukasa would be so angry just because they were talking about a legend that had only died in the world about 7 years ago. Everyone knew the story about how Tomo-yuki had been one of the best and respected of all Blade Masters in history. He had a beautiful wife, Lady Sparrow, also a Blade Master, who had given him a strong healthy son. However, the birth had taken it's toll on Sparrow's body and she became barren. The child was never seen much as he grew older and it was announced when he was 7 years old that he would have the powers of a Wave Master. After that, the child was hardly ever seen again, and worse yet, disappeared 3 years later after both his parents were killed by monsters. Everyone searched Mac Anu for days, but he was never found again. The people didn't even know the child's name because Tomo had kept it a secret until his untimely death.

Mimiru couldn't understand why Tsukasa would flip out over something so small, but decided to let it drop, especially since they were almost to her house and she couldn't wait to see her dad after everything that happened. The trips to Kite and Black Rose's houses were uneventful and almost boring. Unlike Tsukasa and herself, those two's still had their blood parents. Kite's father, Moonstone, was a priest at the Dun Loireag temple and was rarely home. His mother had died in childbirth, so Kite had grown up around temples and was fascinated by history and artifacts. He could easily take care of his house and himself since he had been doing it for years and even invited everyone for dinner, but they all declined since Mimiru and Black Rose's parents would undoubtedly be worried about them, Crim had other things to look into, and Tsukasa was still in a bad mood.

Black Rose's house had been a little more interesting, but not by much. Her father was a bard named Nuke and her mother was a trader named Rachel. Neither were that famous, but both were good enough to have a good life. Crim had herd about an up-and-coming trader named Rachel, but he never thought he would meet her. They were both angry about their daughter being home so late, but calmed down after Crim explained everything to them. They too asked everyone to stay, but their excuses still held and they were off to Mimiru's house.

Adoption is normal in The World, since many people choose to be treasure hunters for a living. Weapons and armor can only be obtained by finding it in dungeons so it is a well paying job, but it is also extremely dangerous because of the monsters. Fields with low level monsters only have normal items, and the rare items are guarded by high powered monsters. The rarer the item, the more powerful the monster. The fact that the profit must be split between all party members who help in retrieving the items forces most people to only form small parties to go to high level areas. It is ok for some parties, but most aren't talented enough to survive high level areas in small parties, and a lot of parents die in the process. That's what happened to Mimiru's parents, but she didn't know why Tsukasa was an orphan, or why Tsukasa stayed at an orphanage. She hated being in that place when she was little, and pitied him because nobody wanted him. 'At least I was adopted by someone, he's so kind and loves me as much as I love him.'

The three finally reached Mimiru's home and entered to find a middle aged Blade Master reading a book in the middle of the living room. He looks up from his book and smiles seeing his daughter has finally gotten home.

"It looks like your finally back Mimiru."

"Of course I am Bear, why else do think I'm here?"

Bear gets up to give Mimiru a hug and kiss, then turns to Crim.

"It's been a while Crim, how are the Knights treating you?"

"It's as good as it usually can get. I know you told me you had adopted a kid before, but I didn't realize it was this little girl here." Crim ruffles Mimiru's hair, and gets daggers shot at him by the teen.

She knocks his hand away and turns to her father, "How do you know Crim, Old Man?"

"He was one of my best students while I taught at the school in Lia Fail. I knew he'd do great things one day, but I never suspected he would become a living legend and help form the Crimson Knights."

While Bear rattled on about how his teaching days in Lia Fail, Tsukasa looked around the room and examined the house. Like Subaru's room, there wasn't too many extravagant things, It was a round room with a table in the middle, a window on one side, and a few nice couches covering about half of the outer circle. Also like Subaru's, he had a huge collection of books including may history texts, and many stories of high level reading. Tsukasa was impressed by the variety and wondered if Bear knew the lady of the Knights.

Mimiru was getting board from listening to the two older men talking so she drug Tsukasa to her room to show him some of her stuff. Her room wasn't impressive at all, just a square room with a closet, a bed, a chest, and a shelf with a few items on it. Most were just ordinary items, but there were two or three rare items that she could sell for a little bit of money, but that wasn't important to the Wave Master at the moment.

"Mimiru, why didn't you turn me in to the Crimson Knights?"

"What do you mean?"

"You know that I have illegal powers because I can summon the Guardian, and that I was able to defeat most of the monsters so quickly even though a normal Wave Master couldn't have done all that by himself. Why didn't you tell the Crimson Knights about it and get some sort of reward?"

Mimiru just looked at him for a moment thinking that he was crazy for thinking like that. "Because I know that you are a good person and wouldn't use your powers to harm people. I don't like that law about illegal powers anyways and don't think its fair for people to die just because of something they can't control. I guess the main reason is because I didn't want to loose a friend."

Mimiru gives Tsukasa a big smile and Tsukasa looks down deep in thought. 'Maybe Kite and Black Rose think the same thing, maybe both of them didn't want me to die because they think of me as a friend now. I've never really had anyone who wanted to be my friend before, it kinda feels nice.'

"My turn. You don't have to answer if you don't feel up to it, but why did you explode back at Tomo-yuki's statue?"

Tsukasa's good mood was destroyed in less then a second with that one question and he wanted to tell Mimiru off right then and there, but realized that she was just being as curious as he had been. The first thing she had said was that he didn't have to answer, but he felt he should at least be a little kind to her for not turning her in. He decided to only tell her a half lie.

"I knew Tomo before he died, and he wasn't kind at all. He was rude, self centered, and a stuck-up jerk, but everyone thinks of him as some sort of god. It just really gets to me that people could almost worship someone like that."

Mimiru was speechless just by the fact that he knew the legend, but was shocked by what he said. She started to ask for more details, but immediately stopped as soon as she saw the look on Tsukasa face that told her that he wouldn't be answering any more questions. The two of them sat in silence for a while until they hear foot steps coming to the door. Bear appeared at the door saying that Tsukasa had to leave. They both sighed and left to go to the front door where Bear stopped Tsukasa for a second.

"Here, I think this was the one you were interested in."

He hands over a book that Tsukasa had been looking at earlier. It was one he had been interested in reading for a long time, but could never find anywhere. He was so shocked that it actually showed on his face (that's one of the rarest things in The World, where's Mireille with a camera when it counts the most) and Bear only laughed after seeing his expression.

"I expect to get that back eventually, but keep it for as long as you need."

The Wave Master could only stammer out a "thank you" and ran out side to where Crim was waiting. The two walked for a few minutes in silence with Tsukasa in the lead, thinking about everything that had happened in the course of one day, being trapped by Sora, meeting Subaru, becoming closer to Mimiru, Bear giving him the book, a lot of misery and a lot kindness; one he is used to, and one he could hardly remember ever getting. Needless to say, he was a very confused teen who had enough to try and figure out before Crim started talking to him.

"Tsukasa I need to tell you something very important." The Wave Master only looks at the Long Arm, not knowing if he can handle a lecture about being polite right now. "I love Subaru very deeply, but I am not in love with her." Tsukasa only looks at him completely lost, so he explains a little more. "There are many different types of love in this world my young friend. The love of a job, the love between family members, and the love between a husband and wife. When a person talks about the love of a job or the love of a family member, it is usually referred to as just Love. Love between a boyfriend and girlfriend, or between husband and wife is called being in love with them."

Crim and Tsukasa have stopped while talking, Crim bends down and looks Tsukasa in the eyes at eye level and continues talking. "I may love Subaru, but it is like the love between father and child, or the love between siblings. She isn't the person that I love the most, and as far as I know, she isn't that interested in anyone else right now." The Wave Master has already knows what Crim means and is sickened by the fact that he was so rude to her and has ruined his chance to get to know her. Crim continues as if reading his mind, "Lady Subaru is a very forgiving person and would probably understand if you just apologies to her. There's going to be a festival in Mac Anu this weekend, and I'm sure that Subaru would love to see you there."

"I can't leave to go to another town, so I can't go to the Festival of the Setting Sun or the Festival of the Rising Moon."

Crim is a little surprised that he knows the names of the festivals of another town, "You can if I get you and bring you their as a guest, you can even bring a few friend with you if you want, but not too many. By the way, how come you know the names for both the festivals for the two days?"

"I've read about them before, but I've gone to either of them." He was only partly lying since he had grown up in Mac Anu for the first 10 years of his life, but had been forbidden by his father from ever going out to enjoy the festivals. That was only one of the many reasons why Tsukasa hated his father. "All right, deal. You come to pick me up at mid-day on Saturday." Tsukasa gave a genuine smile of happiness (another rarity, where are you Mirelle!) and the two began walking again.

They continued to walk while Tsukasa asked Crim another serious question. "So why didn't you fight Sora back at the field?"

The red clad man hesitated for a few seconds before answering his question. "We used to be best friends at one point. Nobody could believe it because we were polar opposites, but we did everything together since we were both 7. We both caused Bear and the other teachers quite a lot of trouble when we were in school, but after that we started to drift apart. We lost contact for a little while Subaru and I formed the Crimson Knights, but we met up again one day in a field. We got back to a town and started talking for a little while, and I invited him to join the Knights with me. He accepted, which surprised me, but it turned out to be a trick just to steal something from Lady Subaru. Even though he betrayed my trust and my friendship that day, I'm still uncomfortable with fight him because of our history. That is not something easy to forget, no matter what a person does to you."

Tsukasa was shocked to hear about the past of the two enemies, but didn't mind that much, since he could finally see the orphanage. Crim only frowned at the site of the run down building that was suppose to be a home for children. The outside looked like it could use a good rub down, new walls, and some new windows since many were broken. He wasn't impressed with the inside either because of all the dust everywhere and the cracks in the walls. He was going to have to talk to someone about this place and have an investigation on the person who runs it.

Tsukasa only got 5 feet into the house when he was tackled by 3 little children, each around 8 or 9 years old. Tsukasa was the oldest people in the orphanage, and was respected and loved my many for it. The children were the only ones to see his good side on a daily basis, since he tried his best to keep them in line and protect them. The 3 who attacked him were some of his most loyal followers who would do anything for him, even though he never asked for anything.

"Reki, A-20, Ryoko Terajima, what have I said about attacking?"

"No to" Reki says, "but we haven't seen you in so long, you haven't been here all day and we wanted you to take us out to the park."

"Why didn't you ask Miss Ninni (a fat woman with short brown hair and an inferiority complex)?"

"You always told us not to go near her when she's drunk, and she's been drunk all day today." A-20 is the new speaker.

Crim's scowl grows even deeper hearing that their care taker is usually drunk on the job and makes a vow to look into this himself sometime before the Festivals began. He and Tsukasa say their good buys and Crim returns to Mac Anu while Tsukasa puts his personal charges to bed with promises of park time the next day, then heading upstairs to get some sleep himself. His last thought before he fell asleep was that he actually had a good time today and that he had something to look forward to for the rest of the week.

----------------(TBC)-----------

Mirelle: (Waving pictures at everyone around her) Looky what I got. (Shows Tsukasa pictures of him with a surprised look on his face and him with a smile.) I'm gona put them in my Ultra Rare Stash section.

Tsukasa: Where'd you get those!! O.o

Mirelle: I was using an ultra zoom camera to get your picture from a far away distance. Don't you think the smiling one is cute? o

Tsukasa: NO I DON'T!! Give them to me now!!. (Makes a grab for the pictures but Mirelle

runs off.) GET BACK HERE!! (Chases after her)

A/N: Thank you for the constructive criticism Dark Dragon (guggles him). I will try to do better, but don't expect miracles or things to be perfect. And its ok to be nit picky, I need to get consructive criticism if I want to be better. And I will not make Balmung evil, he'll just on Helba's team because he is a mutant (the wings growing out of his back).

Yes, I have played all the games, watched all the TV animes, watched the OVA's, and are reading the mangas. Here's a secret for all you .hack fans. On disks 2-4 of the extra's menus for the OVA's, hit the right arrow button while you have the cursor on one of the menu items. Try this on all of the items because the cursor will sometimes disappear, if it does disappear completely (no text is highlighted or selected anywhere) hit enter and you will get extra info on the game and about the show.