damned_institute | Dayshift 42: Bus 2

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Dayshift 42: Bus 2

Before anyone could come to any decisions for their next move, the room suddenly filled with a thick fog. Faster than he could realize what was happening, it had filled up the entire room and swallowed every single one of his friends. Then there was that undeniable stench of iron, blood and... he last remembered taking a step back and feeling that slippery skid and the realization of what that was. By the time he yelled, he was sitting straight up in his bed like he'd bolted awake. Like it'd been nothing more than a bad dream. ...What the hell just happened?!

"Oh! Good morning!" The nearby voice made him yelp with a half squeak-like noise. Oh, for hell's sake. It was one of those freaking nurses again. She was beaming at him like nothing had happened at all. Before he could so much as ask one question, the hag started blathering real fast about some field trip and buses and getting changed and hurrying up before everyone left without him and... OH MY GOD, WHAT WAS SHE DOING?! She was grabbing at his shirt like she was about to start helping him get dressed (or undressed in this case).

He flailed in a desperate attempt to get away from her and yelled his consent to go along if she would get out and let him change HIMSELF. What was the matter with her?! Thankfully, she left but told him to hurry. Hell if he knew what she'd do if he took too long. So for the sake of not getting freaking stripped, he quickly changed into the clothes she'd left on the bed. Clothes being the ugliest looking white-and-black track pants he'd ever seen and a bright blue sweatshirt with a cute little penguin design on the front. This was some kind of joke, right? ...Not to say the penguin wasn't cute or anything but there was no way, no way, he was wearing something like this in public.

But the nurse had burst right in again, and before Kanji could offer much protest, he was being pulled down the hallways and through the doors of the bus. He'd yelled some things her way, but she totally wasn't listening at all. By the time they stopped, he was standing at the front of the bus with a paper bag and the nurse had run off to cart another poor sap along. Frickin' PERFECT. For the sake of not standing up there like some kind of zoo animal for everyone to stare at, he plopped himself into one of the seats by the front and sighed in complete exasperation.

[Free. No limit.]

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What did he mean 'what happened back there'? He'd been there with the rest of them! He'd seen the room change into the Cathedral and had seen them try and fail to defeat that AI. Did he not remember or something? Although with a data drain being involved, who knew what the full effects could be? Tsukasa knew that it had affected his memory when it had happened once. He rubbed his forehead tiredly and then opened the bag, pulling out the juice carton and poking it open with the straw.

"Kite," he replied quietly. "We called him Kite. Kite's a Twin-Blade and a hero of The World. He defeated the Cursed Wave and Cubia, defeated Morganna. That person last night looked like him, but like the code for his PC had been corrupted."

"That's what I thought you'd say," Haseo said blandly, leaning on the forward seat just a little heavier. Saying "never heard of him" probably wouldn't go over so well, so Haseo held his tongue even if he thought it pretty loudly. It bothered him that this had gone unmentioned before he ended up here... even if most of those he could think of in a few moments as having seen the "corrupted" version might not have known, surely someone had to, right? Yata at least, which really only added to the list of things he'd been kept in the dark about. Ovan too, the bastard, though that likely wasn't surprising considering the circumstances.

So what did that mean, if this "Kite" was, as Tsukasa said and Endrance had implied, some hero from before? Seven years was a long time, after all, and it seemed strange to think that there could be any connection at all. But. It seemed there were a lot of things that were connected that shouldn't have been. Like, well, Avatars and these Phases and Cursed Wave. "Cubia" was something new, though really it didn't sound all that important.

"I'm not sure how much you've already heard," he said finally, "but there's this thing called AIDA that's... really bad. That guy - uh, Kite - I... think maybe he was fighting it too but we're... not really on the same side I suppose. Obviously." He paused again, thinking. Maybe it was because of Skeith after all... though... "I don't get why he's here or why he was acting like that... it doesn't make sense at all."

Tsukasa sighed softly at Haseo's words. He hadn't heard of Kite then. "It seems so weird that people don't remember him in seven years," he said sadly. "It was huge for us. He's even more well known than the Descendants of Fianna now." Although if Haseo had never heard of Kite, then what were the chances of him having heard of Orca and Balmung? "It's sad." Depressing to think that everything they'd done had been so fleeting, like none of it mattered. Like all of it really had just been a game and nothing more.

But Aura, she'd remember.

AIDA hm? "Never heard of it," Tsukasa said apologetically. "And I doubt he'd be trying to data drain us if he were on our side," he added with a faint smirk. "If any of this made sense then we'd just be able to log off," Tsukasa added dryly. "I hope I'm not missing classes for this." He'd only just caught up the work he'd missed, he didn't need to be away for another six months.

"Oh, it's... I don't think I'd worry about that." Haseo laughed slightly, though there didn't seem to be much humor in it. "I'm not really the person to ask about that kind of stuff anyway." Perhaps Shino might have known a bit about that, or Atoli, who was into the whole backstory thing... even Silabus and Gaspard had told Haseo at least once that he needed to learn more about what was going on in 'The World.' "You know, Endrance was really famous before I met him," he offered, "but until someone dragged me to the Arena I'd never even heard of him."

As for the mention of everything not really making sense, Haseo frowned, irritated that he'd been caught in that manner. "I know that," he snapped quietly, but then sighed and looked out the window as the bus rumbled into movement.

"AIDA is like a computer virus, except that it infects players," he then explained, tone somewhat reluctant, "It plays with your emotions, and if someone who's infected attacks you, you can go into a coma in the real world- people who had that happen to them are called Lost Ones..." Haseo was unsurprisingly quiet for several seconds after mentioning that, the thought of the ones who'd been struck down in that manner making him feel slightly ill... he hated not knowing what was going on outside of him being stuck on a bus in some completely irrelevant place.

His eyes lingered on the juice box Tsukasa had opened, thinking that he could probably spend this time slightly better by eating the breakfast provided too. But, after the night he still didn't feel all that hungry. "Wait," he said instead, "how old are you anyway?"

Edited 2009-06-27 01:00 (UTC)

Tsukasa supposed that was true. Most people didn't know the truth anyway, he shouldn't expect people to remember them as anything other than game characters. "Sorry," he said quietly, a little melancholy perhaps. "It's just difficult to imagine people not remembering when it's only just happened for me." Would all of them even remember in a few years, or would they just dismiss it as a role play? Endrance remembered at least though. No, too much had happened to pass it off as a game. The medical records proved that.

He scowled back at Haseo when the other boy snapped. What had he expected Tsukasa to say? 'Oh, everything will work out fine. We'll figure it out!'. This wasn't some quest which they could look up the answer for!

But the explanation of AIDA prevented him from saying any more. People put into comas... it all sounded sickeningly familiar. CC Corp had a lot to answer for. "I see," Tsukasa said seriously. He didn't know it all first hand, but he knew that it wasn't anything good.

The question took him a little by surprise, seeming to come out of nowhere. "I'm seventeen," he replied once he'd taken a drink. "Why?"

Beyond what he'd already stated, Haseo didn't really know what else to say. Personally, he wasn't even sure whether he'd care if he himself faded from public awareness, even if he succeeded in stopping AIDA and bringing back the Lost Ones... he wasn't in it to be famous or anything, after all, regardless of how it seemed to turn out anyway. The Emperor's title was incidental, and he wasn't really 'The Terror of Death' anymore, even if Sakaki and the snake-tongued bastards like him insisted on painting him that way. Even the fact that his Avatar, Skeith, carried that nickname as well hardly mattered, considering beyond it being exposed as some sort of way of cheating, most players knew nothing about all of that anyway.

Perhaps he could have thought of... something to say, but in the end it wasn't like he knew those people, aside from their apparent leader or whatever looking like the guy who with one blow had smacked him down and removed all that he'd built up over eight months. And just last night tried to kill them all. Actually, it was more like his aim was to traumatize Haseo and then destroy AIDA in the meantime. The Adept Rogue let the topic go in favor of moving on to other things.

"Nothing... I was just curious," he answered, slightly sullen, "Online game and all that. You said something about classes." It didn't matter to him how much people wanted to say about their real lives, but as a sort of trade he decided to offer what he pretty much told everyone anyway. "I'm seventeen too... I go to school in Tokyo." He sighed. Geez, it's way too early in the morning for this....

"I guess," Tsukasa admitted, smiling a little despite Haseo's sullen attitude. He thought he might understand Mimiru's frustrations over dealing with him when they'd first met now. It was difficult to deal with someone who acted that way. Tiring. But he could see Haseo's point. He could have been any age at all really. You heard creepy stories sometimes, although Tsukasa had been lucky in who he met, especially with Bear.

They were the same age then? "I'm from Tokyo too," Tsukasa said with a smile. "I just started at a boarding school a few months ago. My guardian is sponsoring me there." He laughed softly. "It sort of feels like having a secret identity. High-schooler by day, wavemaster or warrior by night."

Boarding school, huh? Haseo mentally ran through which schools Tsukasa might have meant, but then... it occurred to him that technically, the Wavemaster would be something like seven years older than he was anyway. That was weird. "Huh," he answered, "I think boarding school would only end up driving me crazy." The description "guardian" instead of something like "parent" caught his interest, but it seemed like there might be a story there that Haseo wasn't sure he'd want to hear even if Tsukasa decided to share it.

"I've never thought about it like that," Haseo said, "but I guess it's sort of true... I think some people I know would be pretty surprised to find out who I play." Or... was. The fringe of grey hair occasionally invading his vision made statements about real life kind of awkward. He pushed it back tiredly in revenge.

"It's not so bad," Tsukasa said. Especially not when it meant never having to see his father again and getting to stay with Bear during the holidays. "It can feel a bit crowded though sometimes." That much social interaction was still tiring. He didn't know if he'd ever get used to it entirely. But on the whole, it had been a good experience.

It was kind of amusing, the idea of them being superheros, but it fitted. Secretly fighting something that no-one else knew about. "I think the people at school would be the same if they found out who I play too." Although, lots of girls played male characters, didn't they? It wasn't that weird. Except for the part where he was stuck in this body with... ugh, he didn't want to think about that.

Haseo scoffed slightly, waving a hand dismissively. "Roommates? No thanks," he said, "Work, school, and neighbors are bad enough."

He knew that some people actually did know each other in real life, but the concept always seemed kind of weird when he thought about it. Like somehow there would be an obligation to hang out, and then if they annoyed him online and he cut it off, then they'd bitch at him offline too. Way too much trouble in the end. There was always Shino of course, but... he shrugged the thought away with a sinking heart and rising anger. The sooner they figured out what was going on the better... being here accomplished little for helping those who needed it.

"Hey, so," he started again, then looked significantly at the other young man's hair and wavemarks a moment in thought, "Do you have any idea what skills you're capable of?" He paused, then added dryly, "Well, I guess there's probably not a menu or whatever, but still."

"Sometimes it's nice to be around people. I shut myself off for the better part of six months when I was trapped in The World. I'm just enjoying having people I can call friends now." It was weird, but even after a short time, he couldn't imagine life without Subaru or Mimiru or the others. "I understand the feeling though," he added with a faint smirk. He still preferred to spend his time just with the people he was close to.

Tsukasa reached up to touch the wavemark on one cheek when he caught Haseo looking. Skills? "Rai Rom obviously," he said after a moment, remembering last night. "I haven't tried anything else. I was a decent healer though and I can manage some attack spells. It was really tiring to cast last night though. Like it was dragging the SP out of my body."

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Dayshift 42: Bus 2

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