After Wilted Rose, I wanted to revisit Haseo and Endrance. Split between offline and online, can Haseo uncover the real reason that Endrance abandoned him when he needed Endrance the most? Please read and review!!

And of course, the .hack Conglomerate does not belong to me.

Chapter 1: Offline

It was always hard, adjusting from one World to its neighbor. Ryou found himself time and time again startled why the face in the mirror was not the jolt of white hair over a crimson-tattooed face, or why he could not just pull up a menu when the urge to talk to someone came over him.

That was the hardest, actually. Knowing that he was alone and that someone would not always be there to be with him, talk to him, or even humor him. For all his adamant proclamations of his independence, he was just as addicted to the constant flow of communication from one person to the next, as any other individual.

He had not been able to visit Shino in the hospital for several days now. He didn't think it was right to sit by her side when his only thoughts were fixated on someone else.

Endrance, you… Ryou count think of countless words to finish that sentence. But he was too confused to decide on a single one. What are you trying to pull??

The clack of metal, the shuffle of bodies along the stuffy tracks. The ultimate paradox that proved how desperately different Ryou's world was from Haseo's, the place where people were as close to each other as in The World but would do nothing to suggest that the same beings who rode the cars were capable of communicating as freely as in that alternate reality.

He looked at the tired uniforms that strung themselves along the subway car, not one head turned towards the next. People held up their cell phones like masks at a ball, but the props for this masquerade were only to barricade away the fellow participants, not entice them to conversation.

And of course, there he was anyways, as silent as anyone else. Ryou gazed tiredly at his fellow passengers in the narrow car, expertly keeping his glance from being apparent. But he thought there was one he recognized.

It was a young man whose fashionably—or sickly—thin build that was so alarming, or that long hair that reminded him of someone. He had the oddest sensation that he was looking at someone he knew, but that of course was impossible. He had not even seen this young man before on the route, hadn't he?

And then it struck him. That young man was Kaoru Ichinose, the avant-garde graphic designer that had appeared out of nowhere not two months ago. The design industry and news stations had practically fallen in love with his looks—both that of his work and his own. Apparently he had returned to school after defeating a resilient bout of depression, and had been 'discovered' immediately. Or whatever the details were, Ryou thought. There was, though, something definitely different about him.

Ryou realized that it was because the young man was the only person besides himself not affixed to some sort of technological device. It wouldn't have mattered if the young man had been screening his surroundings away with headphones or a cell or, even, one of those portable headsets that unbelievably allowed people to take their personal virtual world with them when they needed to venture into the commonly-exchanged air.

But a young man open to his surroundings in the real world was as strange as a loner in The World that sealed himself off.

Ryou closed his eyes and leaned his head against the metal pole he used to support his balance as the train raced down the tracks. If he were in The World, he could even have the game's best-loved loner at his summons. It was something that he missed in real life. And now it was something he missed desperately in that loving illusion he plugged himself into every few hours.

Endrance.

He told himself to be angry, to feel betrayed. But he only felt like the betrayer. What had he done to make Endrance abandon him? What had slipped from his mouth, what careless comment had severed the always-delicate bond he had to the aloof Blade Brandier?

Ryou knew his addiction, and Endrance had slaked it perfectly.

And then in that instant he knew why he was musing so bitterly about his fellow passengers. He begrudged them their cell phone conversations, of all things, because it was one more connection to a human being those strangers had, that he didn't. He even disliked Kaoru Ichinose off in his corner, because that young man seemed perfectly content to sit there in his own confident quietness.

And then he looked up, suddenly, searching for a sound. It had caught him in a strange simultaneous lull in the collective but separate conversations. Musical and brief, almost like a chime. AIDA? It couldn't be. But that tone was enough to send a flicker through his heart.

The train. He needed to get off of the train, if what the overhead speakers had told him was true. They claimed technical difficulties—and requested forgiveness for the inconvenience—and the crowd was even now, before directions had been given, pushing him to what it had judged was safety.

"Technical difficulties? I don't believe that for a second," he muttered so that no one could hear him. He had heard the sound again, stark like a tuning fork struck.

There was a great iron shudder that grated into his ears, and the car shook him off of his feet. Ryou scrambled for the ground, but another shudder jarred with his uncertain balance. The last thing he saw was the metal pole he had been leaning on, too close to his sight to be painless. And then he blacked out.