It turned out my short term goal of kicking Haseo's ass became a long term goal and my long term goal of saving Ella turned out to be an even longer term goal. By the end of the first day I'd only gained three levels, putting me at a whopping level four. Naturally this was very amusing to Haseo.
"So, what happened to 'beating my ass' Kaden?" He asked, his red eyes narrowed and a severely annoying smirk on his face.
"Shut... up..." I muttered, focusing solely on throwing my twin blade up in the air.
"I should point out that you can barely take out a goblin at your level." He told me, poking me rather hard in the head.
"And I should point out that your attitude is remotely goblin like, so it's very easy to get confused." I sneered as Kuhn chuckled. He had watched from the sidelines all day as Haseo and I chewed one another out, pausing only to fight off enemies and then starting up again when Haseo criticized my technique.
"Oooh, going to assault me with words instead Kaden?" Haseo asked. I only laughed a little and caught my spinning twin blade before disbanding the party and storming to the chaos gate. I could've sworn I heard one of them call my name, but didn't bother looking back at them as I warped back to Mac Anu.
Once I was there, I wandered through the streets and Alley's of the city, listening in on the gossip of several gamers. It seemed the big topic was the comatose players and a computer virus called AIDA. I'd heard of the virus a few months back when Ella and I had been playing, just shortly before she started distancing herself from me. We'd often theorized that it was people getting to involved with games and forgetting about real life. Shortly after one of us said our theory, we would glance at the other and then start excercizing like hell.
I sighed a little and seated myself on a barrel. Just the thought of Ella sent pain crackling through me and brought tears to my eyes. I hated living without the piece of my soul that kept me going; my own little piece of Ella.
Before I knew what was happening, I was crying IRL and pressing my face to my knees inside the game, not caring if anyone saw.
I don't know how long I sat there before footsteps approached and my private chat alerts started going off.
Kuhn: Kaden...what's wrong?
I blinked a little and looked at the chat box before glancing over at the figure standing at the mouth of the alley. He had his arms across his chest and was leaning against the wall, gold eyes focused on mine.
"It's nothing." I muttered, not even bothering with private chat. "Don't worry about it, okay?"
"Too late." He stated, pushing himself off the wall and walking to me. "I'm worried."
"Don't be." I repeated and turned my head away from him. It didn't stop him though, he placed his hands on my shoulders and forced me to turn to him.
"Why not?" He asked, tilting his head slightly.
"Because I don't need your sympathy or help. I can take care of everything on my own."
With that I stood and stormed off, ignoring the pulsing with in me, assuming it was merely anger fighting its way up.
Kuhn sat there for awhile after the girl left, trying to identify what he felt when the girl stated she didn't need his help. It certainly wasn't anger...he didn't mind being pushed away. Hell, he was used to it from all the times he tried to help Haseo. Understanding perhaps? After all, he had his own lone wolf stage, where he pushed away the help of everyone unless he really needed it. Yes, understanding.... but there was something else.
Sympathy... Tomonari, you know better; you can't take care of things like this on your own. He told himself, whispering it from behind his computer. It had to be both sympathy and understanding... for Kuhn knew the life of a lone wolf all too well.
Kuhn started to started to stand and follow her, only to receive an urgent short mail from Yata.
There are AIDA signals at Delta: Hidden ForbiddenHoly Ground. Kuhn, go there and eradicate them.
Kuhn frowned, partially wanting to go after Kaden, but decided against it and ran toward the Chaos Gate at full speed. Kaden most certainly could wait; the AIDA and whoever else was in danger simply could not.
