Ha no Ie Stage 17: Me and You

Ha no Ie

by K.A. Rose

Stage 17:
Me and You

    Sora thought at first that he had to be dreaming. His visor must have malfunctioned and sent him into seizure fits like that one old anime show he once heard about. This couldn't really be real.
    But once he established that it was, no matter how surreal the entire picture was, he was still at a loss. The PC, that had appeared through the warp-in just as Elk had announced the 'last possible second' to be pretty damn well here, was too hauntingly familiar for Sora to overlook.
    She looked like Mimiru. He thought for a moment that it was Mimiru, but no-- the hair, the body paint, the color of the armor, those trademark white boots with the silver criss-cross of thorns--
    "BlackRose!" Elk wailed. "What are you--"
    "What's going on here?" the female Heavy Blade demanded, hands on her hips. "Where are you all going? What's happening? Where's Kite?"
    Zero to obsessed in 3.4 seconds, Sora thought.
    He said, "We're getting out of here. So are you."
    "Who the hell are you and why should I care?" She craned her head past his shoulder, where the bleeding black doorway continued to spread. "There. He's in there, isn't he?"
    "You can't go in there," Sora said adamantly.
    "Don't tell me what to do, bucko," BlackRose snapped back crossly, resisting an effort to grab her by the upper arm. She twisted away from the three male PCs. "I know you two," she said, pointing an accusing finger first at Sanjuro, then Elk. "You two fought with us. You were his friends! I don't know who you are but I bet you think you're his friend too!" she added to Sora. "If you're Kite's friends, why the hell are you leaving?!"
    "This area is about to collapse," Sanjuro stressed. "We've stayed as long as we could. Please, BlackRose, for god's sake, it's too dangerous here!"
    But BlackRose was not listening, or she couldn't, over the roar of the house as it bent and stretched, groaning like an ancient tree about to give way. She sprinted to the front porch, picking up as if on reflex Elk's staff, laid forgotten in the grass in their rush to escape, the lower-level copy of Tsukasa's own wand. She held it with the head swinging down near the ground, like an elongated tennis racket, stopping only as she reached the edge of the grass where the darkness began.
    "Hey!" Sora was shouting. "What do you think you're doing?"
    "Do you think getting lost in there yourself will help him?" Sanjuro added.
    "If we could reach him, we'd've done it already!" the Twin Blade said as well. "What makes you think you can?!"
    It was, at last, at this remark that Sora finally got BlackRose's attention, if only for a moment. She looked back at him, a warpainted figure holding a weapon she couldn't possibly use, surrounded by an ever-growing abyss.
    "Because," she said, "he wants to see me."
    She turned away, and the movement might as well as put a barrier between her and the other three. She was focused now only on the void beyond her, and staring hard into its depths, she began shouting Kite's name.
    She did not stop, despite the protests of the other three that she run before it was too late. Not even as the ground on all sides of her melted into black, leaving only a small untouched little island of green sparing her from the shadows.
    Eventually she glanced back at the three male PCs, looking puzzled as to why they were still there, but moved on to address Elk, holding up the staff, "You hacked this?"
    He nodded weakly.
    "Right," she said, eyes steeling as she turned back around, holding the staff upright as a proper Wavemaster would. She banged its tip against the ground, what little of it still existed around her, and at once it flared up with a brilliant white light that caused all three of the others to flinch and shield their eyes.
    "KITE!" she called again, one last time, pointing the flare closer to the darkness in hopes that it might illuminate something in its depths. But there was nothing.
    So, she stepped forward.
    She attached no ceremony to the action, no special signifier, no claims of "I may be some time." She entered, and as the last of her disappeared into the recesses of the shadow, the dark growth that had spread out across wall and floor almost instantaneously morphed away, leaving everything as it had been before, down to the last blade of grass. In the same moment the house around her quieted its own protests, its tremors fading and finally falling to a halt, leaving the field still and silent as a graveyard.
    And she was gone.
    It was just that simple, Sora thought sorrowfully, in the wake of the girl's departure. All I had to do was go in. I just had to take that step.
    I couldn't. I couldn't do that.
    I...
    And now Kite is...
    Was it possible, a sadness that hurt so much it went past the capabilities of a human being to properly express it? When tears and sad looks just didn't cut it? Where it wasn't about your jealously-guarded masculinity because you wished to god you could cry, if only crying could be enough. But it isn't. It's not that easy.

    "What--"
    It had been the slightest sound, a tiny blip, as one of the dots on Helba's own map suddenly blinked out.
    She had called up all three of her secondary systems to help with crunching the house map. These were top-of-the-line consoles, overclocked as Bith's had been, bringing them to almost the same caliber as government supercomputers when their network was all aligned. She had lost seven of them to confiscation during her trial, and though she had been assured they would be returned unscathed, it would be years of red tape before she would see them again, at which point they would be completely obsolete.
    Now she was forced to network her remaining three. At maximum output the apartment in which she lived was becoming a furnace. She pulled the windows open wide for air, but when it had begun raining at such an angle that even the overhang of her small terrace offered no protection, she was left with no choice but to live with the heat.
    And it was nearly not enough.
    But now something else was happening. Or rather, was stopping.
    "I don't understand it..." she murmured. "That BlackRose girl... She..."
    The viewchanger function was jammed. She didn't even try to access the dungeon map.
    Outside, lightning crackled.
    "Did I see that right?" Wiseman asked, in slight disbelief. "She... went inside the house? Just like that?"
    He and Helba were the only left in Net Slum now, at least apart from the ones that lived there already. The last of the other hackers had finally filtered away, scared off by the rapidly unfolding events, or at least from witnessing two high-end users go up in smoke within minutes of each other. Even Mia had vanished, who knows to where, not willing to watch her dearest friend Elk in danger when she could do nothing to help him.
    "Can you detect her present status?"
    "Not on my system, unfortunately."
    "Nor mine."
    "The last logs that came through are dated ten minutes ago," Wiseman continued unhappily. "We were picking up Kite's voice for a while, but then it stopped. And a star."
    "A what?"
    The Wavemaster shook his head. "I can only say what I saw. The connection to Kite's visual relay is very weak. It broke the same time the logs died. But by present observations we may be able to infer that the star that we saw wasn't actually a light within the house at all, but the light from the staff BlackRose was carrying."
    They exchanged glances.
    "Could it be?" Helba said quietly. "Could she actually..."

"...Could she actually...

...reach him?"

who are you

give me your hand

can it be...

is it really ...

you ?

everything will be all right now

    "The thunder's stopped," Helba observed, surprised even at her own words as insufficient in verifying what she was seeing.
    "Helba," said Wiseman, over in the corner where he had set up his own monitor nodes. "I'm seeing the data load on remote hosts going down. System resources are freeing up across the Tokyo intranet."
    "You mean..."
    "I don't understand it," the wizened Wavemaster admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. "The Adamantine Code didn't seem to reach 'absolute point.' Something stopped it prematurely."
    Helba, despite herself, smirked. "Which is only your conjecture, of course. All we even have are our theories."
    "They're working theories so far," he responded, a little put off.
    But something was driving the lead hacker, as she went on, "Theories always are, until a counterproof comes along. You say the Adamantine Code can't be halted before reaching 'absolute point'? I have a suggestion. The Adamantine Code is bunk; garbage programming with no material result. We have been observing well-timed coincidences."
    Wiseman lounged back in his makeshift chair of crates, spreading his hands. "What do you want from me, madam? Observations point toward it, observations point away. In the end, we know nothing. All we can offer is our best guess on how it all might add up."
    "Does everything necessarily add up, Wiseman?"
    "Certainly. The universe is based on the equal sign."
    In front of her terminal, Helba peeked a glance from under her visor at the rising sun seen through a part in the blinds of her window.
    "Sometimes I wonder..." she said into the mic.

    In the space of 40 minutes, Elk, Sanjuro and Sora had gone back and forth on whether to leave more than once. The answer was always the same.
    Just a little bit longer.
    There was a growing desperation, yes, even insanity, in each repetition of this argument. All three cracked, at different times, only to turn around again the next time in defense of staying around for just a few more minutes. It would have been difficult to tell, based only on words, whether the argument was between three people or one particularly conflicted mind.
    Somewhere, for one of them, who knew who, a radio alarm went off.

"Can you hear the calling of the raving wind and water?
We just keep dreaming of the land 'cross the river..."

"Damn. Sorry," Sora said, beginning to drop his controller to go turn it off.
"No. It's okay," Sanjuro reassured him. "It's a nice song."

"We are always on the way to find the place we belong
Wandering to nowhere, we're paddling
Down the raging sea..."

"It is," Elk agreed, closing his eyes for a moment.
"It's not really my kind of music..." Sora insisted, not one to let embarrassment go unremarked-upon. He had his honor at stake, even right now.

"Who can cross over such raving wind and water?
On the rolling boat we sit, shivering with coldness
Come by an island, come by a hillock,
It's just another place, we paddle on
Down the raging sea..."

    "I just--"
    "It's okay, Sora," Sanjuro said, laughing. "Really!"
    The Twin Blade took a breath. It didn't do much. How could they just sit there and listen to a folk song right now? When they still didn't know what, if anything, had happened to the two people still trapped inside? How could anything, much less some stupid radio tune, convince them that everything was all right?
    But they were gone now, both of them. Listening to the song as it came over tinny and distorted through his interface mic. And the calamity of thoughts can't last when there's no one else around to be chaotic with.
    It was a fairly nice song...

"But in one morning we'll see the sun
Bright shining morning dew singing
They who will search will find the land
Of evergreen..."

    "Oi!"
    Sora snapped his eyes open, heart giving a minute jump. He'd been unaware until that moment that he had been drifting off to sleep. He must've been much more tired than he thought.
    The wind around them had increased from a light, calm breeze to a gale. He shielded his face with an arm, front locks of hair flying back. But just as soon as it had begun, it had ended, and likewise the glow that he could only think for a moment encompassed the house, seen out of the corner of his eye, faded.

"Can you hear the calling of the raving wind and water?
We just keep paddling down the sea, up the river..."

No sound, no sight, but somehow drawn, the three of them running as a unit to the side of the house, turning the corner to find there, in the shadow of a large bough, BlackRose hunched forward on her knees, crying, a pink ribbon in her hair, cradling Kite in her lap.

"No destination, but we are together..."

Elk started to cry. Sanjuro tried to look composed, and failed.

"In the silent sadness we're paddling
Down the raging sea..."

    "He's all right," BlackRose was saying to them, between sobs. "He'll be okay."
    Floating-falling, the world in slow motion all around him, Sora sunk down onto his knees. His eyes were as if frozen, fixed to the sight.
    "Kite..."

"Down to nowhere..."

...and the voices that are carrying this tune...

ba daa ba-ba

Subject: Notice to All "THE WORLD" USERS - Ziggurat B Expansion Now in Stores!
To: "THE WORLD USERS" (<_//list>)
From: "LIOS" (sysadmin@mac-anu.theworld.cyberconnect.co.jp)
Date: 01/01/12 00:01 GMT+8hrs.

The latest "THE WORLD" expansion is now available in all major physical and online retailers. This expansion, the Beta version of the Quest for Ziggurat expansion released last year, is an improvement upon all the new functions the last expansion made available, as well as a key component in fixing many previously unreported bugs and glitches.
New features of Ziggurat B include:
-Improved character texturing
-Expanded color choices
-New character class: Beastmaster
-New character class: Monk
-Improved character interraction interface
-Two new text servers for logging BBS posts
-25 new weapons
-78 new pieces of assorted armor
-Expansion of Assist Guild
-Level limit raised to 100
PLEASE NOTE: Players will not be able to acquire the new final level in the regular way. Rather, players must earn the 100th level by completing a very challenging new quest. Visit the BBS or the Level 100 Quest NPCs available in all Root Towns for additional information!
The following features from previous expansions are now DISABLED:
-Player versus Player fighting (outside Battle Arena)
-Shout-All Flash Mails
-Image imbedding in either Flash Mail or BBS posts
-"Excessive Blood" Violence Setting
-Blank Trades
PLEASE NOTE: REGARDLESS of whether the player has installed a copy of Ziggurat B on his or her console, these features will not function. So, you are prohibited the same way Ziggurat B users are, but you're missing out on the fun too!
Furthermore, to encourage greater exploration among denizens of all Root Towns, the CC CORP TEAM have discontinued the following keywords.

Part A    Part B    Part C
Sugar     Pink      Doorman
Devout    Ultra     Superman
Handsome Redhanded Me
Serious   Own       Sirius
Dirty     Demanding Present
Murky     Giggling Congress
Howdy     Million   Pain
Corsing   Living    Pulse
House     Deadly    Apology

We have also introduced 54 new keywords to replace these and expand "THE WORLD" even further. But as always, only new registrants will have initial access to these as part of their principle set. :) This is to encourage socialization with new players.
Thank you for playing "THE WORLD". If you haven't yet, please pick up the Ziggurat B expansion to enhance your gaming experience.
From:
LIOS
(principle sysadmin)
and
The CC Corp Team

    They laid in the grass under the shade of a broad tree, the shadows of leaves swaying over their bodies and casting strange patterns. Overhead, the sky was quite blue. Clouds drifted by in a simulated light breeze, the same one that swept the grass into a carpet and ruffled clothes and hair.
    Off somewhere close was a well, bucket swinging back and forth as steadily as a metronome, and just as hypnotic. A windmill creaked, ancient sails flapping. A few birds flapped by.
    It might have surprised a passerby that these two had spend several hours in this way, lying on their backs, feet going in opposite directions with only their heads, cushioned by laced hands, in close proximity to each other, each seeing the other person as though upside-down from their persective. They said nothing. At least, nothing out loud. The distant looks on their faces indicated that there were volumes of things being said and responded to inside their heads, either too shy or too proud to speak aloud. Things they didn't feel like talking about. Things they hoped they'd never have to say.
    But mostly, things they were contented to keep to themselves.
    "So I guess that's it," Kite said at last, breaking the silence as easily as the two had let it settle in. "It's blocked off now. It might as well be gone."
    "Couldn't they just delete it?" Sora asked, glancing over at him.
    "Maybe they can't. Or maybe someone didn't want to." Kite stretched a bit, straightening out his legs. "But since even I can't get to places without keywords, and Tsukasa would never go near it... I think it's pretty safe."
    "How is she? Tsukasa."
    "BlackRose was telling me how this girl showed up at her apartment at five-thirty in the morning, dripping wet and in some sort of evening gown, talking raving nonsense. That's how she figured Tsukasa was the real deal," Kite said matter-of-factly. "If someone looks that insane, they're probably telling you the truth."
    "This is your logic."
    "Yyyyep. Well, her logic."
    Sora shrugged his eyebrows. "It's a good logic." He looked back at the sky. "I think I'll keep it."
    "What are you planning to do now?" Kite asked. It was an abrupt change of subject, but the ease in which he said it didn't make it seem that way. "You're still registered with the Assist Guild, right?"
    "Going in to renew today. Though lately there's a lot of annoying people who want me for support. Wackos."
    "Welcome to the world of 'net popularity. Population: you, me, and Balmung. Hurray for us."
    "Where's that jerk been? We could have used him for this whole business."
    "Off getting his adminship, apparently," said Kite, rolling his eyes. "Which seems to be an awful lot like getting a knighthood. Bath in milk and rosepetals and whatever else. I wonder about him sometimes..."
    "Not something you'll be looking into, huh?"
    "God forbid... So, what else?"
    "Huh?"
    "You're not going to be an Assist 24-7. What else are you going to do in the game? The Level 100 Quest sounds right up your alley."
    "Ehh..." Sora said, dragging out the sound. He shifted the position of his arms a little. "I might, but... I mean, is it really worth all that for just one extra level? Not like your stats can go above 99 or anything... Would you be doing it?"
    It took a while before Kite responded. And the silence that lay between the two as he hesitated wasn't the calm, casual silence they had enjoyed before.
    "BlackRose... doesn't want me to play anymore."
    Sora turned his head. Kite's expression could not be easily categorized. More than anything, though, it was the pained look of someone who wishes the other person will respectfully let things lie.
    But Sora wasn't that kind of person.
    "What?"
    Kite took a deep breath. "After she... y'know, got me out, the first thing she did was give me her number, when I said I didn't have it. I don't think she realized she'd never told me before. And she wants me to call and write her letters and go shopping with her and... uhgh..."
    "And she doesn't want you to play."
    "Yeah."
    "Do you want to play?"
    "Well, yeah..."
    Pause. This silence was even more stinging than the last.
    "...Do you love her?" Sora asked.
    Kite pulled himself up into a sitting position, his back to Sora. The taller Twin Blade didn't move to follow suit, but watched his hunched-over form with head craned to see.
    "Yes," Kite said. "No. I don't know." He scratched the back of his neck, and sighed. "Same as always, I guess. Girls confuse me."
    The small noise Sora made in reply was the very definition of a noncomittal response. He let his attention drift back to the sky again.
    "But it's all right now," Kite tried. It was his turn to look over his shoulder at his companion. "Because I have her number now, I can talk to her whenever I like, and it's on my terms, not hers. So I'll figure it out. I don't have to worry about it anymore. Anyway, I guess of anyone, she'd probably the one I... well... I guess kids your age don't really like hearing about that kind of stuff..."
    "Nn-n... it's okay..." Sora murmured.
    "I still have your number, too. Haven't gotten around to throwing it away. Do you mind, or...?"
    "You can keep it. I don't care." He shrugged again. "You're not stupid like the others."
    "I'd like to call you again," Kite said, smiling. "It'd help out to have real-time discussions for some of this tutoring stuff I've got set up."
    "...You still want to do that?"
    "For the third time, yes!" Kite said, breaking into a grin. "How many times do I have to say it? I've been looking forward to starting for a long time." Surely Sora hadn't forgotten they'd even set a date for that, had he? They'd agreed to start after the new year, after all. Of course he'd remember that...
    "All right."
    Kite deflated a little. That wasn't quite the response he'd been hoping for. Something he'd said --he'd be damned if he knew what-- had just drained all the life out of the other Twin Blade.
    He leaned over, lowering himself down onto his elbows, and hovered over Sora until he was forced to meet his gaze. "Hey," Kite said, "is something wrong?"
    And then came the most painful silence of all. Especially on Sora's end.
    He took one long, deep breath, and held it for a few seconds, wishing it settled his nerves a lot more than it actually did. Kite was still hovering hover his head, waiting. He couldn't even get up the courage to look away.
    "What if I told you," Sora said, in slow, metered tones, "that I don't want you to stop playing?"
    In real life, for reasons he could not even begin to guess at, Kite's cheeks began to turn red. His only saving grace was that in The World, the same reaction was left as a voluntary action.
    "What. Really?"
    Sora nodded.
    Kite only smiled.

                "It must be nice..."
                "What is?"
                "To have someone that can dictate your choices so much. I don't think anyone will ever
                influence me so much that I stop doing what I want to do."

                                                                                Maybe the best kind of someone
                                                                                            is the one who wants from you
                                                                                nothing but what you already are.

    He had to leave soon after. His mother was calling him to dinner, and he'd already upset her enough that week. But he promised --double-promised, pinky-swore-- that he would be on tomorrow in the afternoon. They could go renew their Assist Guild registrations together. And maybe if they felt like it they'd look into that quest.
    It was almost dizzying. Sora wondered if his heart could even stand to be beating like this. Two months ago he'd never have been able to say it. Two months ago he half-suspected he wouldn't have even argued.
    He had a friend now. One that was going to stay.
    He had made him stay.
    The guy had gone against the wishes of the girl he may or may not have liked in favor of staying here, with him.
    He tried to hide it. He tried to brush it off casually. Perhaps too casually, in hindsight. He didn't even stand up and see his friend off properly, preferring to keep lounging on the hillside as Kite got to his feet, stretched, wrapping up the last of their conversation.
    It almost slipped right by him, when Kite finally bid him goodbye for the day. After all, there was getting the rug pulled out from under you, and there was getting the rug pulled out from under you and finding there was no floor beneath...
    Kite had started to walk away in the direction of the warp-in point, but stopped.
    "Hey, Sora."
    Sora twisted his head around to look at the other PC, but made no other movement.
    "Yeah?"
    For a moment, Kite's resolved seemed to waver, flicker out. But then it was back. And he grinned.
    "Happy New Years."
    Sora froze, the realization of the implication of Kite's words just starting to dawn on him

as the telephone rang.

<<end://_data

start time: 17:00 25 April 2004
end time: 09:37 17 June 2004

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