Shinjo No Aijo

Guide:

*On-line* = occurring within a game world

*Off-line* = real life events

~*~*~*~*~ = change of scene

Chapter 1:

Two Worlds Opposite

*On-line*

It was massive combat arena. In one dark corner of the battlefield was a girl known only as Eternity. She had red light weight combat armor on and armed herself with only one hand cannon in each hand. Waiting in the shadows, another competitor, Gruesome, passed by. Without any hesitation, Eternity took her shot.

Announcer: Head shot!

She surveyed the kill from afar, knowing that the Plasma Rifle Gruesome left behind would be excellent bait for another kill. And in fact, it was. Another competitor, a burly, muscular man named Frag12 passed by and stopped to pick up the weapon. Eternity grinned and warned him first.

Eternity: You’re mine, Frag12. *click*

Frag12: The hell?!

Announcer: Eternity has gained the lead!

Frag12: Next time I re-spawn, you’re screwed, you hear me Eternity!

Eternity: Bite me.

Gruesome: *re-spawn* There! I’m back! Now for some payback, Eternity you little back-stabbing…

Eternity: *click* Too much talk, Gruesome.

Announcer: Head shot!

8-Ball: No lurking, Eternity! That’s not fair!

Eternity: Life isn’t fair. *switches to Rocket Launcher* Quit whining. *click*

Announcer: Annihilated!

Shadow: Mind if I join in?

Shadow was a new competitor, which the other players immediately equated with easy kill. She had shoulder length black hair, medium weight black combat armor and armed herself with a Shock Lance. Then, she shot 8-Ball’s head off in the blink of an eye.

8-Ball: That’s not possible!

Frag12: Lucky shot! *switches to Plasma Rifle* Let me at her.

Shadow: *click* You were saying?

Gruesome: Can’t you idiots do anything right? *picks up a Laser Cannon*

Shadow: Apparently, no. *click*

Announcer: Head shot!

Then, as Shadow turned the corner, she found herself face to face with Eternity. Eternity had her weapon at aimed at her head and so did Shadow. It seemed like a stale mate as the other three competitors simply stopped and stared. Then, Shadow got a head shot on Eternity, beating her to the shot by a split second.

*Off-line*

“She’s good…”

“Gendo, turn that thing off!” his mother’s loud, nagging voice called. “It’s past midnight already!”

Gendo Kanzaki was a young man, roughly sixteen, with white hair as a result of a genetic abnormality. Gendo logged off and turned off his computer, leaning forward for a split second. He saw himself in the empty screen of his monitor, the long sleeved, dark brown school uniform, his thin body and his black eyes like empty voids. The game, ‘Warzone 7017’, was his favorite escape from reality. It was his escape from the pressures of the world around him, urging him to fit in and blend with the crowd. Outside, he saw himself as mediocre in ever way. He was pale and scrawny; he was exceptionally quiet and didn’t have any friends to speak off. But within that game, he was a veritable god. He was virtually unstoppable, with ‘Eternity’ as his avatar. He doesn’t play much but everyone on the server fears his avatar.

“You had better go down, Gendo-kun.” A young girl, who appeared from nowhere, smiled sweetly.

“Hello, Minako.” Gendo smiled back.

Minako was an AF or ‘artificial friend’ unit, a specially designed computer program that was integrated into a control bracelet he wore on his lower left arm. Like all AF units, Minako could adapt her programming to suit the personality and needs of her owner and she could project herself as a hologram. They were created to simulate human affection and companionship as best a machine could. Minako had sky blue hair reaching just above her shoulders, an innocent looking face contrasted by small, domineering eyes of purple. Gendo was using the default age setting of sixteen, giving her an average figure. Gendo may never show it but Minako knows that he likes her. She was his only friend, from all possible perspectives. If nothing else, the sign that Gendo likes having Minako around is that she’s the only one he smiles to.

“That ‘Shadow’ person was good, wasn’t she?” Minako asked with her usual smile as they walked down the stairs to the kitchen for a snack. “She managed to out shoot you.”

“She’s probably the only person to have a kill on me, Minako.” Gendo answered. “Think you can do a little research on her profile or records in the site’s database?”

“I think so.” Minako answered before switching to a blank expression and her purple eyes glowed for a second. “Strange, her profile’s locked. Not many people lock their profiles since it makes it harder to schedule matches with them.”

“Well, in any case, I have a feeling I’ll be seeing that avatar again.”

“You want me to try hacking into the server for her records?” Minako asked. “Your father specially programmed me to do stuff like that you know but you haven’t made much use of that aspect of me. I’d love to see just how much hacking ability your father programmed into me.”

“I don’t see any reason to object.”

“I’ll get right on it, Gendo-kun!” Mist smiled before turning off her hologram projection.

“I wonder…” Gendo wondered. “I have a reputation to keep up. I can’t let an upstart like her beat me.”

~*~*~*~*~

She had long, beautiful raven black hair that shimmered in the dim light like the night sky. Her skin, much like Gendo’s, was pale and almost chalk-white. She sat back as her opponents one by one logged off or surrendered to her. Within ten minutes, she had over-taken the leader and had them running scared from her. She leaned forward on her computer table, seeing her own reflection. The long sleeved black dress that she loved to wear, the deep, light brown eyes, the look of disillusion and hatred, she saw it. She sat back as her computer shut the game down, taking a sip of her juice. She lived in the Sacred Cross Academy girl’s dormitory, which meant she had to share a room with another girl. She preferred to be alone but there were no more solo rooms in the dormitory and the closest place she could stay was rather far from school.

“Eternity…” she thought to herself as she eyed her violin. “Intriguing…”

She stood up and walked towards her half of the room, picking up her violin case and smiling. She hadn’t played it in a while, she thought to herself. She missed the grim, somber, mellow and sometimes, even melancholic music she often played on it. However, since moving to the dormitory, she hardly ever had the chance to play. Her roommate didn’t like it and neither did the people in the rooms above or below theirs. Her hand ran over the name etched in traditional kanji characters over the wood of the case, it was hers: Kanako Himezaki. She looked in the mirror and saw a grim scowl, as she always did. She had no friends; most people who knew her were her enemies. She chose the virtual world of ‘Warzone 7017’ as her escape, along with a fleet of dating simulations and of course, her violin.

“Classes star tomorrow, seven in the morning.” Kanako said as she looked at her schedule for the next semester. “I hate mornings. All that sunlight irritates me.”

Kanako was more of a nocturnal person, preferring the moon and the stars over people and the sun. She looked out her window, her eyes fixated on the beauty of the crescent in the sky, staring into the stars. To her, the night sky was an abyss that she had stared so long into; it had begun to stare back. As the long, elegant, black cascade of her hair ran down her back, she lost herself. Kanako had little to like, from her point of view, her family hated her, she had no friends here or back home and her pet, Kana, was a talking black viper. People reacted to her either with fear, prejudice, hatred or often, all of the above. She didn’t fit in or even try to fit in with any of the established groups of the school’s student body. She wanted to be alone most of the time, isolating herself by staying in her dorm room most of the time.

“Hey lesbian Goth girl…” Her roommate, who just went in drunk, greeted. “Damn, my head hurts…”

Kanako didn’t dignify her roommate’s greeting with an answer. It was clear, even without the smell that she had been out drinking. She was a cheerleader, which often meant she was out on a wild night with fellow cheerleaders and the various sports teams. Kanako bothered to remember her roommate’s name, Angela Sohryu, a half-American. She looked at the long, chocolate brown hair that Angela had, almost feeling the urge to cut it all off and leave her bald. The girl had some serious misconceptions about Kanako’s personality. Then again, it was understandable since Kanako was often playing dating simulations filled with a variety of cute girls and her entire wardrobe consisted of the school uniform and black or white clothing. Of course, Kanako didn’t care what she, or anyone else, thought of her.

“I don’t like Angela…” Kana hissed.

“Kana, you would love to drive those beautiful fangs of yours through her neck, wouldn’t you?” Kanako asked, looking through the glass case which contained her beloved pet and only friend in the world. “One day, I’ll let you do that but not tonight. I don’t want you getting the smell of beer all over you.”

To Be Continued...

Kana: As you can see, the dialogue during the on-line sequences is in script format. I personally think it works better. Anyway, since I'm doing more of the writing on this one, it's going to probably have a slower pace than "Hellion's Heart", which is more my partner, Kanako's, work.