by K.A. Rose
Stage 15:
Make It Leave
"What the hell is it?"
The light of Sanjuro's sword had been enough to
catch a glimpse of the structure, but they required a higher-intensity
glow in order to see it clearly. So Sanjuro had sacrificed the last of
his weapons to the purpose.
Pointing the flashlight upward, the spotlight fell
over thick blocks of black stone, circling around a center beam, framed
by an unornamented railing.
It was inexcusably a stairwell.
Sideways.
"What does this mean for us?" Sanjuro wondered aloud.
They had foregone conversing through PMs again as too cumbersome, especially
when there were no walls around for echo. "Does it mean that we're sideways,
on a wall?"
Kite shook his head. "It might not be the same Staircase."
"It is," Sora insisted, sounding slightly
spooked. "But..."
"Should we try to get up to it?" Kite suggested.
"And do what?" Sanjuro asked. "Try to climb it?"
"Who knows..."
Sanjuro directed the flashlight to the right, then
the left, letting the beam extend as far as it could in either direction
before the light could reach no further. The beam ended, it seemed, much
sooner than the Staircase would.
"I don't like it," Sora said. Kite detected a slight
tremble in his voice he knew the other Twin Blade was struggling to suppress.
"It's just... hanging there. Like, you know, those big whale skeletons
suspended from the ceilings in museums..."
"Yeah..."
Sora took a few steps back. "Maybe we should keep
moving," he said.
Or meant to say.
He dropped so suddenly there was almost no time
for reaction, barely enough for him to give a short yelp before disappearing
over an edge that had not previously existed. Followed by the shriek of
metal against stone.
Kite snapped his head around, saw the Sora-shaped
hole in his field of vision, and immediately tore his gaze down.
Sora looked back up at him.
"...Thank god," he wheezed.
"Maybe a little later," Sora grunted.
He hung maybe fourty feet down, both blades imbedded
up to the hilt into the side of the ledge. Deep gouges were lodged into
the rock above it; some reflex that Kite could only marvel at had kicked
in somewhere on the way down.
"Jesus. You all right?" Sanjuro asked, having joined
Kite by the edge.
"Keep asking me that and I won't be," Sora huffed,
eyes scrunched up in concentration. He took a few deep breaths. Glanced
down. Immediately regretted it. "Ffffuck..."
He was hanging over nothing. Without light he couldn't
tell just how far the shadows ran, or if a bottom existed at all. He didn't
know which was worse. He didn't want to know. Didn't want to--
Sora bit his lip, clamping his eyes shut. Now was
not the time to discover a latent fear of heights.
Ha. Ha.
He sucked in breath again. Cold, stale air. "Okay.
I'm coming up now."
"How--"
"Justshutupandletmeconcentrate," he snapped back.
His arms were starting to hurt.
His arms were starting to hurt.
God, no, he thought, trembling. You really
are over the edge now, aren't you...
...Just don't tell Kite.
Forcing all his weight into keeping the left blade
lodged in place, Sora carefully, painstakingly, slowly retracted the right
blade until it clunked back into his bracer.
He could hear Kite holding his breath, for fuck's
sake.
Then, just as slowly, using mostly his left arm
for propulsion but also pushing up --mostly futily-- with both legs, Sora
reached up and pressed the hilt of the bracer on a spot of stone a foot
and a half higher than the last. Waited for the click of the metal against
stone, and clenched his fist. Heard razor-sharp metal scream as the blade
punched through.
And then, once satisfied with its strength, Sora
did it again with the left blade.
"Are you sure about this?" Kite asked, voice wavering,
after Sora had ascended about eight feet.
"Yes," Sora answered, voice thick under the strain.
"Don't worry. I read about it in a book once."
"That's not much comfort."
"Look, this is kinda difficult, so if you
don't mind..."
Kite respectfully fell silent. He bit down a "sorry"
for fear it would only agitate the Twin Blade further, and stole a quick
glance over at Sanjuro. The samurai was looking right back at him.
After 20 feet, Kite's agony still had not subsided.
That Sora had made it past the half-way mark did not prove any matter of
comfort. But he couldn't ask Sora to speed things up or anything...
At 29 feet, the roar that had plagued them earlier
came back, so jarring that Kite and Sanjuro were both nearly pitched forward
over the edge. Kite yelped, the two of them landing hard on their knees
near the ledge and clutching to the ground as best they could even as it
rocked. The bones in their hands that held their controllers rattled with
the vibration.
The growl of the house,
of the Creature, of something, had barely had time to subside
when Kite heard another sound, rising up from below as clear as the sharpest
church bell on Christmas day.
Sora's right blade had snapped.
Weapons in The World did not break. This
was not a property they were meant to have. Earlier videogames had put
forth the idea of weapons that would take on damage and it was met with
such frustrated outcry on the part of players that in designing The
World, CC Corporation knew better than to implement such a feature.
Spears never broke. Staffs never ran dry. Blades stayed sharp. This was
one of the grassroots fundamentals of the game's design.
But still it broke.
Shattered, twisted shards of metal floating down
and catching glints of light off Sora's Rig Saem and Sanjuro's flashlight
until even that couldn't reach them anymore. Sora's right arm swinging,
windmilling, fingers clawing at a gap too small to fit a coin through much
less give him purchase, fingers sliced open against the chunks of blade
still lodged inside, as his breathing quickened into a panic, feeling the
other blade even then start to slip, unable to hold itself in place under
the increased strain--
"SORA!!" Kite cried out, despite himself, leaning
far too forward over the edge for caution to allow. Sanjuro tried in vain
to hold him back, ended up overextending himself as well, a silent communal
thought racing through both their brains.
Rope. Now. Hurry.
Through gasping hyperventilating breaths, Sora managed
gruffly, "i'm al lright1 dont; worrydammit."
"Just stay there. We're going to hack up a rope
to lower." Even as he said it Sanjuro was pulling up the script from his
desktop to begin the item hack.
"itll jsut break!1" Sora shouted.
"It'll last long enough! Just hang on!"
Too far. Too far away. He's over twenty feet down.
If the rope doesn't work, we can't--
The left blade took a sudden jolt forward and slid
halfway out, before the swing of Sora's body tilted it upward and the tip
caught the roof of the hole. If it bought any time at all, it was a matter
of seconds.
"AAH!"
"Hold on, Sora!"
Please. Please--
"It's no good," Sanjuro was moaning, "I can't get
the hack to--"
If he had said more it was lost among the cacophony,
as the house roared and shook, the blade screamed
as it lost the last of its purchase, and its owner screamed with it.
"NO!" Kite shouted, diving an arm forward with hand
outstretched despite the futility of it all, held back from falling only
by his remaining companion, the two of them watching by the last of the
light of the failing flashlight hack as Sora tumbled, clawing with bracer
and blade and fingers against the uniform stone, the left blade, still
intact, and the jagged remains of his right, striking rock and tearing
streams of white-hot sparks up into the darkness as he fell, the sparks
growing less and less frequent as he drifted farther from the wall, or
ran out of strength, and then at last the sparks dimmed and faded and the
last hint of Sora and everything of him had disappeared into the abyss.
Before he even realized he had moved, Kite had stood
up and begun to pause his game, his visor already halfway off as he said,
"I'm calling him."
"Wait a second," Sanjuro said urgently. "This is
an unstable area. We shouldn't--"
"I'm calling him!"
floating
falling
can't tell
cold air
getting colder
where is
going down
getting dizzy
can't feel
I
rrrriiiiiiinnnngg
don't know
rrrriiiiiiinnnngg
can't
I'm--rrrriiiiiiinnnngg
Sora opened his eyes. He blinked a few times to be
sure of this activity, because what he saw was only black.
He breathed. In. Out. Weak lungs ached reassuringly
in his chest.
I'm such an idiot.
Sanjuro stood to his feet as Kite's character model
unfroze, signalling his return into the game.
"Everything all right?"
"He'll be fine," Kite told him. "Seemed close, though.
Maybe even a fluke. I'm not trying our luck again."
"So what's our game plan now? Go back?"
"I don't think we can."
Sanjuro started. "But--"
"We can wander. That's about all we can do," Kite
said soberly. "We've lost all sense of orientation now. Our supplies are
low. Sora has the largest stores left, and now between the two of us we
might be able to last until 4 o'clock, but not much after. Plus, when I
tried to pause earlier, it was difficult."
"How do you mean?"
"As if something was physically holding me back."
"You mean..."
Kite lowered his head. "I'm sorry that I've involved
you in this. All of you."
"I should be sorry," Sanjuro said morosely.
"I'm sure you'd much rather be here with Elk or Sora than me. At least
Sora."
"I don't get your line of reasoning. You have no
control over what happens here. Besides," Kite said reassuringly, "you're
a good person, Sanjuro."
"I wonder sometimes..." Sanjuro trailed off, fingers
twitching a little. The sensation of being without some kind of sword was
foreign to him. He was growing uneasy. "But, in any event, we should get
moving."
Elk was getting tired. He had had only three visitors
in the past five hours, and two of those were members of the same party.
The servers at this time of night were either more desolate than normal,
or word had gotten out to stay away.
One thing was for sure. Lios had not locked the
field.
Other things were becoming progressively more certain
in Elk's mind as well. The fact was it was now just past 3 o'clock in the
morning on 26 December, and in a few hours the sun would rise.
After that, trouble would begin.
Worse yet, Elk feared he coudn't be here when he
was finally needed. Fatigue was making its presence known now.
A human body is not meant to survive on adrenaline
for extended periods of time. Particularly of the brand coming only from
a mental or emotional rush, with no physical threat being posed. Elk had
lasted as long as he could on his own, then with soda and the last of his
caffeine pills (some punk elementary school kid had stolen his bottle on
the way back from cram school earlier), but even that was losing its effect
now.
And perhaps worst of all, he had no way of knowing
whether his struggle was worth anything at all.
He'd conducted ping requests for the first hour,
even though they had timed out after the first fifteen. His hand had moved
to the phone next to his monitor more than once, but each time he had withdrawn,
paranoia dominating all other breeds of fear.
Elk knew that if it was Mia here instead of him,
she wouldn't be so terrified. She wouldn't let her apprehensions overtake
her like they had him. But Mia wasn't here. And she couldn't use a phone
anyway.
Heh...
His ears twinged at a new sound coming through the
hum of his silent headphones, and his heart gave a jump.
"Ano," he said in his best assertive voice, before
he even began to turn toward the spawn point to address the warp-in, "I'm
sorry, but this area is off-lim--" He stopped.
Arms crossed over the back of his head, eyes cast
down, Sora walked awkwardly toward him.
Elk stole a quick glance back at the door before
fixing his gaze on the Twin Blade again. "How...?"
"I dropped out," Sora mumbled, letting his arms
drop. A toe of a boot kicked at the grass. "'Guess it beat me in the end..."
"What about the others?" Elk persisted. "Are they--?"
"They're still inside," Sora answered, stopping
the Wavemaster short. "Still in one piece s'far as I know."
"Are you going back in?"
Sora's laugh was short, sharp, and rueful. "'Oniisan'
told me to hang out here."
Tsukasa's head throbbed, in time with her pounding
heart.
She had seen Sora fall into the abyss. She had watched
him disappear, had watched Kite nearly dive in after him, heard them cry
out as the house shook all around them. But
even before it had subsided another tumult had begun that only Tsukasa
could not escape from.
She had heard of those with clairaudience, able
to hear the thoughts of others. But it had always been demonstrated on
TV and in books as some quiet, subtle experience, lurking and subdued.
Here, now, in this place, thoughts screamed.
Tsukasa physically recoiled, cringing from the noise
against which there was no defense. Terror that had no words to express
shot through her brain like bolts of electricity, unstoppable, unfilterable.
Raw, uncensored emotion, clawing at the inside of her skull that blood
would drain from her ears and eyes, tear her apart down to the smallest,
indiscernable fragments.
Things she could not repeat to anyone, anywhere,
even to herself. Deep parts of minds that were not and should not be shared
with other living creatures. Things even their originators were unaware
existed within them.
It was not just Sora, Kite and Sanjuro now, but
others too, swarming in on every side like moths to a brilliant blue flame.
A hundred voices, a thousand, clamouring and shrieking around inside her
head, a moaning crowd of warping, morphing ghosts grasping air and crawling
forward, trodding over one another to get close to her.
She swung at them, futily, with her wand, its crescent
head swiping right through their paled, inconstant forms, doing nothing
to subdue or stop them in her tracks, only making them scream louder. The
thoughts were now not individually distinguishable from one another, they
coiled together, weaved in and out of one another, fighting for dominance
or allying with common notes, a symphony of raw, bleeding agony.
Breath was short. She was getting dizzy from the
lack of air. When she did manage to gasp for breath it was only to fuel
dry, desperate sobs, driving out what little remains of control she still
possessed as the panic took a lasting hold.
She allowed her wand to fall soundlessly onto the
invisible floor. She clamped her hands over her ears. But the sound was
not entering there, and all the effort did was strengthen the echoes inside
her head.
"Stop it!" she cried, falling to her knees and curling
in on herself. "STOP IT!"
And in an instant, every single voice had silenced,
leaving only a stinging absence that rung in her bruised ears.
And then she was left with nothing. Save her own
thoughts.
"Kite."
No answer. Sanjuro frowned, stopping in his tracks
and bodily grabbing the Twin Blade's shoulder. The boy jerked to a halt,
swaying, head swinging limply upward.
"Hh? Wha?"
"You've been zoning out. Are you okay?"
"Nnh? Yeah," Kite said weakly, pinching the bridge
of his nose. "I guess I'm just getting tired..."
It was half past three o'clock now. They had been
inside the house for over five hours now without
break, and though this paled in comparison to Exploration #4, to say nothing
of the Holloway Expedition, they were steadily getting worn down. Between
dealing with the strange properties of this area of the dungeon, being
at the ends of their supplies, and at a loss for a strong source of light,
as well as other things they weren't very willing to acknowledge, fatigue
was setting in hard and fast.
Sanjuro straightened up, an effect lessened without
a weapon to shoulder. "Go get something to eat."
"But--"
"It'll be all right. I'll keep an eye out."
"Right, well, when I get back we're switching off.
You need to eat too."
"Thanks, but I'm all right. One of the benefits
of living alone is that no one will complain if you put your computer in
the kitchen."
Kite tried to laugh. The effort was obviously there.
But it wasn't really a laugh when it came out.
Instead he stretched his arms and made to pause
his game, but stopped short, drawing his left arm in sharply. "Ow!"
"What is it?" Sanjuro asked quickly, alarmed by
the action.
The shorter PC rubbed the back of his shoulder,
fighting down a pained groan. "I'd noticed it a bit earlier but-- My arm
hurts for some reason."
"Muscle strain? If you've been sitting in one position
for a long time..."
"No, I don't think-- I dunno. Nevermind. It's not
important."
His expression said otherwise, but Sanjuro let it
go. "Take some painkillers while you're out as well, if it isn't going
away."
"Kind of weird to hear that from a self-professed
samurai," Kite said wryly. "Aren't you supposed to tell me to tough it
out and be a man about it?"
"A distraction's a distraction," Sanjuro said, shrugging.
"And you've said it yourself, you don't get the machismo thing."
Kite cringed with the memory. "Please, you weren't
even there."
"I've heard about it. Now just get going."
"You'll be all right?"
"Certain of it."
Sanjuro couldn't help feeling a slight bit of relief
when Kite finally departed. Even now when they were both expected to put
forth more than their share of effort in getting through this place, Kite
was trying far too hard. Whether he liked being reminded of the fact or
not, he was still a kid.
He knew better than to pass judgement on such a
factor, of course, at least not now. During 'the Ordeal' most of his compatriots
in the fight against Morganna had been school-aged. Kite himself had only
been a meager 8th-grader at the time. An amazingly competent and mature
8th-grader who had just saved not only the online World but the
physical one as well. Stuff like that only happened in anime.
"..."
In the silence that descended upon the pair following
Kite's departure, the darkness had taken on a new edge. The light provided
by their Rig Saem provided little comfort in the face of this presence,
and with Kite being the only one left with the materials to hack up a flashlight,
Sanjuro became suddenly, acutely aware of how limited their scope of vision
was.
And more than that, that they were sitting targets
for whatever else might be out there.
Who am I kidding? Sanjuro thought, allowing
at least his inner monologue to slip back into English. Sit around
and be paranoid like that all day, it'll only wear you out...
He tried to relax. He knew better than to assume
this was really possible, but it didn't stop him from the attempt. He should
try to conserve his energy somehow, even if it was mostly futile.
But when Sanjuro heard something behind him, he
spun to face the sound. And his eyes immediately went wide.
"There."
It was the first sound to come from Lios in well
over an hour. Helba, Wiseman, and several others in the area halted their
own discussions and turned their attention to the administrator, their
eyes drawn to where his index finger stabbed a portion of the graphical
map.
A small red dot, blinking every few seconds as from
a sonar ping, lay just under his fingertip. A single kanji hovered over
it.
"He's reappeared, see that?"
"Out from the house?"
Helba inquired, vying for a better view.
"No. Just logged back on, by the look of it. But
he's there now. Which means..."
"Possibly, that he was never absorbed in the first
place," Helba said, without caring to conceal her disdain for Lios's now
obsolete assumptions. "Which calls into question a great many things."
Without waiting for his acknowledgement, she switched the views on the
paper scroll until the loading dock screen's grid appeared. Still nothing.
She switched again. "See!"
There, in the upper right, were two dots, one with
kanji and the other with katakana, a distinguishing mark even before they
read the exact word. It was Sanjuro and Kite.
"As far as we're aware, the conditions inside the
dungeon haven't changed," said Wiseman, fixated, as they all were, on the
two dots as if worried they might cease to exist if they looked away. "This
might indicate that our loss of a signal was the result of spatial interference,
moreso than a failure of the figures to transmit information. Something
may, in fact, be blocking the Ziggurat B trace data."
"They're being protected," Mia interpretted. "Is
that it?"
"But in that case," Lios said apprehensively, "what's
happened to our man on the spot?"
"You're worried, aren't you."
Sora didn't realize he had been staring off into
space until Elk's voice jerked him out of it.
"Huh?"
"About Kite," said Elk, unphased. Though he probably
knew Sora was presently eyeballing him, he kept his own vision centered
straight ahead, fixed on the brick wall that lined the small courtyard.
He sighed. "You don't have to dodge it or anything. It's pretty obvious."
Sora said nothing.
"Don't act like it's a bad thing or whatever," Elk
continued, unprompted. "It's good to let people know you're human sometimes.
Besides, Kite'd probably be relieved you've eased up a bit." He allowed
the head of his staff to rest against his shoulder. It had a gray crescent
head with a red stone floating at its center, a copy of Tsukasa's, given
to him just as Sora had given his blades to Kite.
Sora, contemplating on this, looked down at his
own hands. The left blade was retracted, but the right one was jammed,
only a broken-off, jagged claw. It hadn't regenerated when he'd logged
back in.
Realistically he shouldn't have been so upset. They
were just old blades. Level 34. He could pick up a new pair at the Carmina
Gadelica marketplace and no one would have been able to tell the difference.
But it did make a difference...
"I'm sure he'll be okay. Sanjuro too."
Sora's eyes did not leave his hands. "You think
that?"
"I'd hope so. Otherwise you'll get yourself sick
worrying so much."
"Hey now..."
"I know how it is," Elk insisted, sounding a little
wistful. He was watching the trees now. "Every time Mia goes away I worry
so much. I've tried to get myself to calm down, 'cause I know she'll always
be okay, but..."
That, finally, took Sora out of himself enough to
speak up. "Ehn, but aren't you and Mia kinda..." He made a small gesture
with his hand.
Elk blushed, forcing his eyes to the floor so that
his bangs would cover most of his face. Sora had a hunch the expression
wasn't just limited to the game version of him. "Well-- That is-- Kids
your age sure have their minds in the gutter!"
Sora was about to challenge the remark, wondering
just how many people had guessed his age by now, but Elk continued,
"The thing is, Mia isn't... well.. real, so we can't really..."
"50u k4..." Sora said. He paused awkwardly, at a
loss for anything else to say. He scratched the back of his head, saying,
"Well, that's gotta suck..."
"I don't mind so much, it's just--" Elk stopped
mid-syllable at the emergence of the warp-in sound. "Excuse me!" he said,
beginning to turn to address the newcomer. "This area is off-limits. Could
you please--"
And that was the second time that morning that Elk
found his speech cut off.
"What
are you doing here?" Mimiru asked, ever the mother figure. "You just got
out of the hospital! You
should be resting!"
"Sorry," the Tsukasa of memory mumbled. "I just... I was hoping to see..."
"Subaru? You two really like each other, don't you..."
"No. Not Subaru. Well, yes, Subaru. But I can see her anytime, because..."
She ducked her head, forcing
herself to eat the latter half of the sentence. Some things should only
be treasured by one person. "No, that
is, I wanted to see Sora. To thank him. It's all due to his efforts that
we survived at all."
The noise Mimiru made could only be registered as distaste. "You so sure
about that? I'll bet if we fought,
we could have made it on our own without that weirdo's help."
"It's really not about that," Tsukasa said, but without much emphasis of
conviction. "The fact is that he did.
So, we owe him. I owe him. But he hasn't been around at all..."
"He doesn't like hanging around in towns, y'know."
"Well, I even posted on the BBS and everyone who came back said they hadn't
seen them at all since that
day, and it's not like he's anything if not noticable. And we never did
find out what happened to him, what
with Helba deleting the field and all..."
Now even the Heavy Blade was looking concerned. A little, anyway. "Come
to think of it, yeah, we don't
know what happened after we left that place, do we? And after we got back
that big creature thing--"
"Skeith."
"--Yeah. That thing was coming after us. Do you think, if it came from
the place with the Voice..."
"I'm sure he's all right," Tsukasa said resolutely. "Isn't he pretty much
indestructable?"
Come to think of it, the present Tsukasa
thought, watching the scene, it wasn't until much later that we found
out what happened, was it? But I wasn't here, then, was I?
I was at a new school.
Bear was fighting a custody battle for me.
Mimiru took me shopping in Shimokita.
I was using my phone time to call Subaru, not
go online...
"Sakuma-san? Nn. Yeah, it's Tsukasa. Listen, are you busy right now? I
meant to ask you, concerning my
living arrangements when I'm out of school--...... No, look, I'm sure it's
very nice at your place. That's not
what was on my mind..... No, see, the thing is, I talked it over with Nazuka-san.....
Yeah, Subaru..... Well,
we talked about it, and she's got her own place and it's a bit further
out toward the suburbs..... Yeah.....
Yeah, I know..... Look, I'm not--...... I'm not expecting you to understand,
okay? You respect this is how I
am and I'll respect that you're old-fashioned. I want to move in with my
girlfriend. That's just the fact of it."
You just wanted to keep me because you wanted
a son again. A good one.
"I love you. Ohh, I hope that didn't sound like I just belted it out,"
Subaru said, covering her mouth with her
hands, blushing. "I had to say it sooner or later, because I knew I'd be
saying it. I love you, Mitsuki."
You were the first person to ever call me that.
Even my dad just said "aitsu."
"Marry me," the Tsukasa of memory whispered in her lover's ear. Lying in
bed together, arms cradling the
older girl's shoulders.
"You're too young," Subaru giggled affectionately. "Let's wait until you're
out of high school before we start
thinking about that."
"Young? You think I'm young?"
"Still a teenager is young, Mitsuki."
"..."
"Mitsuki? Is something wrong?"
"Yes, something's wrong!"
You take me into your home, I care
for you, I make love to you that you tell me no one, man
or woman, will ever compare, I ask you to marry me and
you tell me I'm too young?
"God, you're drunk."
"Shut up."
"Where were you last night?"
"I was here... Why?"
"You don't have to lie to me, Subaru."
"For God's sake, Mitsuki, where would
I even go?!"
"Oh, quit crying! Aren't you older than me?"
"What's happened to you, Mitsuki?!"
"What's happened to me? What's happened
to you? Can't you act your age?"
"Can't you act yours?"
"Don't touch me again, Mitsuki,
I swear to God!"
"Now--"
"GET AWAY FROM ME!"
"How could I ever fall in love with you?!"
"Who are you talking to? Is that Crim on the phone?"
"I'm getting out of this house, Mitsuki! I'm
going away until you come to your senses again!"
"Like hell you're leaving! Get off the phone. Subaru, GET OFF THE PHONE!"
"I'm not going to be afraid of you, Mitsuki!"
"Afraid? Why afraid? What am I doing wrong?"
dull hard thumps pounding fireworks going off in front of my vision
pain thud blood bleeding aching crying
what the fuck did you do that for?!
"I warned you," said Crim. "Never make Subaru cry."
Sanjuro looked back and forth between the faces of
his two comrades.
"What do you mean?" he asked. "Has Kite not come
back out yet?"
"Last I knew, he was with you," Sora said, unable
to keep nervousness out of his voice.
"He went AfK for a second, and then my phone rang..."
Sanjuro scratched his head with one hand. The other one held his glowing
katana that he had previously lost inside the dungeon. He wasn't particularly
religious, but he had to thank whatever was responsible for his character
dying and reverting back to the last save. And without him with it. "I
answered in Japanese because I thought it might be him, puzzled the hell
out of my neighbor. You know that Judge_X kid, the one that helped the
Holloway Team? He's dead."
This information fell over the two as a slow wave
over a beach. When it finally sunk in, it was Elk to say, "How?"
"Suicide."
"They're not connecting you to it at all, are they?"
"I wish I knew," Sanjuro said apprehensively. "That
was about when my power shut off and I got disconnected. I'm no techie,
but I think I got a massive power surge. Who knows from where. Took the
folks up in Pierre fifteen minutes to reset the grid. A good thing Kite
had my cell number too..."
"So he's all right then?" Sora asked, in what Sanjuro
felt was a remarkable display of focus. Or maybe fixation.
"Last I heard. But, of course, we've got a different
problem now." Sanjuro took a breath, mainly to calm himself. "Kite is inside
the house, much farther than any of us have
ever ventured. And now, he's all alone."
End Stage 15.