Disclaimer – I do not own any of the elements of .hack, being anime, game, characters, scenario, and what have you. This is a work of fiction based upon the gaming series.

A/N – First fanfiction, I suppose. Seeing as .hack//G.U. Vol. 1 was running onscreen while I decided to create another account, I suppose you may attribute this to that circumstance. This was intended to give some of my creative background to Haseo's player in the series, Ryou Misaki. Seeing as how I think the two fit each other though, and as there aren't a lot on this site, it sort of turned into a Haseo x Atoli midway. In any case, this takes place before the final events of Volume 1 of the game series, and will contain spoilers to some whom have not advanced further into the game.

On with the story.

Reminiscing Realization

A Random Fanfiction One-Shot by

TheEndOfTomorrow

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Ryou Misaki gave a great sigh, pulling off his brand-new set of M2D goggles, and running a hand through his hair. The young man stared at the set of goggles, reminiscing on the world that he viewed through them every day. The goggles remained still upon his computer's desk. As hot as the cursed things would get sometimes from his hours of use, Ryou mused, those goggles changed him every time he placed them on.

In a sense, those goggles created the Terror of Death. Every time Ryou entered the fantastical online game, "The World" through them, he became a different person.

During the day, Ryou would sit through classes, stuffed into rooms with several other students his age. Every day the teachers would drone on about something already written down in a textbook. Ryou could never understand it- If the information is given to you adequately enough already, why were the parents of these students stroking the checks to these teachers for this so-called "prestigious" high school of his?

Ryou leaned back in his computer chair, pondering all of this. He came to the quick conclusion: The other students must be complete morons. Ryou never listened to the teachers at his school, he never had to.

-Flashback-

Ryou sat at his desk in yet another class, he had forgotten which by this point. The teacher droned on and on in the same dull manner he always did, and Ryou thought about what lay waiting for him in "The World" later in the afternoon. 'Will I find him...today?' 'Will Tri-Edge answer for his crimes...today?' 'Could-could Shino possibly be saved...today?'

"Mr. Misaki!" yelled the Professor, suddenly in front of Ryou's desk.

"Yes, Professor?" Ryou asked, standing up.

"We are studying Accounting Business Principles, not daydreaming in our own little worlds- Understood?"

Ryou rolled his eyes. He didn't even want to take a Business class- Ryou's father, being the extremely rich person he was, had forced it on him. However, just because Ryou didn't want to know it didn't mean that he was a slacker in this class.

"Very well, Mr. Misaki, since you know so much about this course without paying attention...After we journalize the Adjusting Entries, you-"

Ryou interrupted. "Journalize the Closing Entries, create a Post-Closing Trial Balance, and after the fiscal period, journalize the Reversing Entries. May I sit now?" Ryou inwardly grinned at his sharpness, but maintained a stoic exterior. Those topics were not only of the current chapter, but those of two chapters the class had not covered yet.

After about ten seconds of fish mouthing, the teacher bade Ryou to sit and returned to his lecture.

-End Flashback-

'The fool...' Ryou thought, still leaning back in his computer chair. 'I may not pay attention in the slightest, but I still can read. Teachers, looking down on their students and thinking they're all the same, that they're all "empty" up there...I always know the answer.'

Ryou now only wished he knew the answers about the things that mattered to him. Avatars, AIDA, Tri-Edge, Shino, Atoli-

Halt.

Ryou pinched himself for that last thought. Shino ALWAYS comes first, he told himself. Besides...Atoli didn't need Ryou's attention when she had her precious, noble, proper...

"...Filthy, cheating, lying Sakaki!" Ryou said out loud, lurching his chair back to its proper sitting position rather forcefully.

Ryou blinked twice before he realized he had spoken that out loud. 'Thank whomever that Father lives away from here," Ryou thought. 'That...could have been awkward.'

Staring back at his computer desk, Ryou saw all sorts of things he had left there. Schoolwork left unfinished (for the time being), printed out board posts of PKer's he had investigated and later interrogated, even one drawing of Tri-Edge's sign, as to never forget it.

"I hate you." Ryou said, staring right at the triple-crisscrossed red pattern he knew all too well. "I hate you, and I'm talking out loud to myself because of you." Ryou berated himself, but continued to stare.

Tri-Edge's sign stared back.

Ryou mentally kicked himself, then finally stood, stretching. What had he accomplished...? Ah, yes. Nothing. A rare day when no important email was passed along to Haseo, no task by Yata, and nobody online to make miserable.

Ryou considered that last thought. People to make miserable? Was that really his intent? Sure, as the Terror of Death, he trash-talked and ridiculed every player he came in contact with, but...the greater portion of those were PK's, right? Suddenly, Ryou was granted an image of his first confrontation with Atoli in Mac Anu, then his later outbursts to her, both when he tried to get her to enter the Tournament, and later when he slammed Sakaki in front of her before their match with Matsu.

"Wow, I'm kind of an asshole." Muttered Ryou to himself. "Maybe I should...be nicer to her?" Ryou was greeted with a mental image of the former Terror of Death, flowers poking out of his armor at random points, the armor a lovely shade of daisy yellow, letting birds perch on him, to mental-image Atoli's amusement.

"...HELL no."

Ryou shook his head, exiting his stuffy room and into his connected bathroom. Splashing a bit of water on his face from the sink, Ryou looked up at himself. Dark black hair, and auburn eyes, almost like Haseo...just not quite. This worried him for a moment. If he didn't look like Haseo, would Atoli still-

'...Still what?' Ryou asked himself, splashing more water on his face. What did he care about what Atoli thought? In fact, where he usually was rather self-conscious about Shino, why would this be happening with Atoli all of a...

Ryou stared himself in the mirror, coming to a sudden realization. That last thing he had wanted to tell Shino, had redirected itself.

"No. BAD. BAD. You do NOT start falling for random girls who look like the one you already fell for!"

Ryou wasn't stupid. After giving it some thought, he realized there was...something definitely there for that girl, that Atoli, that...

'What had she said her name was? Chigusa? What a nice name...'

...

"God DAMN it!" Ryou yelled. "Ryou, Haseo, Terror of Death, whoever the hell you are, STOP IT. It's getting sickening at this point!" said Ryou, again to no one but an empty house. Letting loose another sigh, Ryou exited the bathroom, returning to his room, and grabbed a dark black jacket that lay on a nearby bed. He was going to do his daily ritual, visiting Shino in the hospital where she lay comatose. Perhaps, Ryou figured, that seeing Shino would stop this sudden trigger of feelings for the Harvest Cleric Atoli, and put them back with the Cleric Ryou figured they should be with.

Two hours later, on his way home, Ryou found himself wondering if Atoli was online.

Ten minutes later, the Terror of Death appeared in the Mac Anu Root Town from a swirl of blue lights.

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"Hello, Haseo!" said a bright, cheery voice from a certain, beaming Cleric standing before him.

Ryou cracked a small smile in real life.

"Yeah, yeah." Replied Haseo, rather grumpily. Atoli continued to smile at him, even though he was being his 'usual' self. "What? Quit smiling at me like that. You're giving me the chills."

'If only you knew why, though.'

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A/N: Note that the game and some online reading is the only experience I have with the character of Ryou Misaki, and I may be incorrect on some points of his life. I hope that this has given some creative depth to the character, and I hope that I did not go too far overboard with the creative license on the Accounting class. I tried to think of something that might be taught in a Japanese school that I knew something about (ruling out Mathematics and Science). Also, I tried not to downplay Shino for any fans of her character, wishing to include her, simply not in a romantic fashion in regards to Haseo/Ryou.

In any case, I hope that was well done enough for a first attempt after two-to-three years of no creative writing and fanfiction. Review please, criticism gladly accepted and encouraged, because I'll never get better otherwise. Flames will be regarded as immature and ignored entirely.

Take care, Dear Reader.

-TheEndOfTomorrow.