XI. Justice

His condition was deteriorating; water seldom flowed uphill. The universe had no greater sense of justice, of fairness in these matters, and who was Phyllo to complain? He was the one who listened to everyone else's problems, and that was the way he liked it. Right up until the end, sitting on a bridge above Mac Anu's glittering golden canals. Nicer than staring at the blank ceiling of a hospital ward, wasn't it?

No, the one really being dealt an injustice here was that boy, Haseo. He still came to see Phyllo even though he was so angry now, so full of corrosive grief, and probably ignored most of Phyllo's advice. Clearly he has nobody else to talk to, nobody taking proper care of him in the real world. Phyllo had no inflated sense of his own importance, but he worried about what would happen to that boy in the future. It was a shame to read the first pages of a powerful story, but be denied its ending.

Still, those weapons were waiting in Caerleon Medb, they weren't going anywhere. Antares had his instructions, when the time was right. He wouldn't drop the torch Phyllo passed to him.

Ovan, on the other hand…Phyllo had trouble believing that man's actions were wholly just. No point worrying about it now, though. It was out of Phyllo's hands, his thinning, weakening hands.

XII. The Hanged Man

Of all the paths Ovan could take from this point, not one led to peaceful shores. Be the monster who left his beloved little sister to rot, or the monster who caused dozens, perhaps hundreds of others to suffer, all for the sake of a single tiny life. What else could he do now, besides carry on digging his own grave?

Even if it would be a literal grave as well as a metaphorical one, it made no difference. AIDA ate into his arm, sealed and subdued with all the powers a hacker and Epitaph User could command, and Aina ate into his heart, and both devoured his sanity like ripe fruit. He was not incapable of rational thought yet, of careful planning and string-pulling, but he would be eventually. He was not out of control yet, reaping Lost Ones through a fevered, bloody haze, but he would be eventually. If Haseo's rage didn't bloom into power swiftly enough.

Sometimes Ovan unearthed pieces of himself that didn't care about his fate at all. Sometimes he unearthed pieces that truly feared.

XIII. Death

Somewhere during those six vicious, miserable months as the Terror of Death, Haseo began confusing his online persona with his real life self. He was drunk on power, made reckless by rage, tangled up in the illusion of invincibility. When the lights at a pedestrian crossing flashed red, he wanted to snarl at the traffic and stride on regardless; when somebody annoyed him he wanted to whip out his scythe and cut a path through the crowd, keep on swinging until everyone just fucking shut up and backed off let him get to wherever the hell he was going in peace. Until he was too exhausted to move, or think, or remember what was making him feel this way.

But he wasn't that stupid, to draw that much attention to himself. Then people would be concerned, ask questions, try to make him talk calmly about things that needed to be spat and screamed. Teachers, parents, well-meaning idiots who had no clue where he went every day, whose bed he sat beside in a ward full of the half-dead being tended to by the half-alive.

Once he reached out to hold her hand, but it was all cold bone and brittle, IV-punctured skin; he flinched back quickly, feeling like an intruder. Then he left, and glowered at all the recently-healed patients on their way home, knowing that none of them deserved to be well half so much as Nanao Shino did.

XIV. Temperance

Shino had never been a loud, excitable person, even in childhood. She liked tending to plants and reading books, and she liked playing The World, but was happiest just sitting and talking to her friends there, just getting to know people. That was still true after her coma, but The World seemed different now, somehow…colours less sharp, more organised, and certain sounds muted or gone altogether. It wasn't a problem with her own senses, as she'd been given a clean bill of health by the doctors, and her M2D was in good working order. But she couldn't shake the feeling that something was missing.

Sometimes she looked at Atoli, tilting her head as if listening to music that nobody else could hear, and wondered if there was a connection. And sometimes she looked at Haseo, hurrying Atoli along on the way to pick up a quest, and wondered if her loss wasn't elsewhere altogether.

But Shino was the one who had invited Atoli to Hulle Granz along with Haseo, and told him to be true to himself. She had stood on that same spot when Ovan lunged at her with his monstrous blades, and not raised a hand in her defence, because she'd trusted him so very much. She wasn't a loud person, calm and soft-spoken and thrifty with her displays of deep emotion – and that was a good thing, she decided, or else she might sometimes sob quite loudly.

XV. The Devil

Could Sakaki have won all he wanted without this unpleasantness, caught all his flies with honey? Certainly, he was a brilliant enough man for that. The truth – and he saw no point in denying it – was that torturing Haseo delighted him, better than his shiny toys at the Serpent of Lore or the power of a CC Corp admin, almost better than being given a new seed of AIDA! A guiltless pleasure, justice in action and pure poetry in motion.

Some might suggest, impudently, that this conflicted with his ultimate ideals, his world of perfect peace and harmony. But not so, not at all! A nuisance like Haseo would always try to disrupt that, would always need to be crushed sooner or later. Sakaki wasn't being cruel to anyone who didn't deserve it. That was the key. If beings of lower intelligence couldn't understand, well, that was their problem. He wasn't asking for their permission. He knew what was best, what was best for all of them.

Or, in Haseo's case, what was worst. The very thought made Sakaki smile, made the AIDA nestling in his heart flutter and glow.

XVI. The Tower

Yeah, so Bordeaux enjoyed PKing. So what? Better to get on and do something than sit around whining all day. You didn't hear her crying about PPKs, did you?

Those preaching pansies at Moon Tree, they could all go to hell. That hypocrite Matsu who used to live for PKing, and Hiiragi who flounced around in Holy Palace, and that weirdo Sakaki who'd turned sort of cool but then dropped off the face of The World. And Icolo, sure they were strong, but why confine it to the arena? As for Canard, those losers wouldn't have even existed to her if their guild master wasn't the Terror of Death. Which was dumb, because they were supposed to be a noob-helping guild, and how did he ever help out? Sure, if somebody killed a noob he'd PPK in return, but Bordeaux had seen him in action; she knew he just wanted the excuse to fight (and someday she'd give him the fight of his life).

No, Kestrel was the only guild she'd ever care about. Master Gabi understood the PK philosophy, even though he didn't follow it himself. He understood that it wasn't some heinous crime to freak out over, that it was just a game, a sport, a way to let off steam and stop yourself going crazy. He understood almost everything.

Though really, it would be pointless if everyone treated PKing that way, if even the victims were chilled out and didn't suffer. Then she'd need a new hobby!

XVII. The Star

It's a weird feeling, the first time Alkaid logs in after waking from her coma. Sirius is waiting in Lumina Cloth, back to his old self again; he tells how Haseo freed him from AIDA, amongst all the other news. She laughs, asks if Haseo is Holy Palace Emperor now, then.

He's Sage Palace Emperor, according to Taihaku. Alkaid laughs harder, because that's just like Haseo. Says she's sorry to have missed all the fun.

But inside, she's nervous. What exactly has Haseo been up to? What's all this strange stuff people are saying about Sakaki? And how about Atoli, what's been happening between her and Haseo since Alkaid got knocked out of the picture? How's he going to react, seeing her again?

And she tries to remember those last blurry moments when she became a Lost One, but the details squirm away. Was Haseo…crying? Was she telling him not to cry? That couldn't have happened, could it? With her just lying there like some dumb damsel in distress…

Then she gets that email from Zelkova - though she doesn't know how he found her Member Address - asking for help on Haseo's behalf. However mixed up Alkaid feels, there's no way she'll refuse that. No way Sirius will either, or Taihaku, and so they head into battle together, united. And somehow, Haseo shows up there too. She's glad that this time he gets to see her in fighting form, but she's even more glad of the hug, and the honest, obvious happiness in his voice, when he greets her.

XVIII. The Moon

Bo doesn't have a lot of friends outside The World. He likes making friends with animals, petting their fur and giving them food, but his mother yells at him for that, says he'll get bitten or catch a disease (and he's sickly enough already). He's never had anything like that happen, but feels bad for not doing as he's told…

But it's okay, because when he's older he can take proper responsibility. And in the meantime, he never feels lonely online (just don't play for too long, his mother says, or you'll get a headache). He has Saku, and Haseo, and some of Haseo's other friends are really nice too: Silabus and Atoli are always smiling and trying to help, and Gaspard is nearly Bo's own age, with a cute PC.

Some people don't like Saku much – they think she's bossy, and it's true that she does kind of boss him around, but he doesn't mind; he's just happy she's here to look after him. And sometimes people get mad at Haseo, or Haseo gets mad at them, but Bo knows he's really kind too, and not scared of anything.

Maybe, Bo thinks, the same people who automatically don't like Saku and Haseo are the same people who'd think any animal is going to bite them. He's not sure if that means anything, but it feels like it's the truth.

XIX. The Sun

It's only fair that the PC is female. Since Saku is stuck in a boy's body in real life, it's really only fair that she gets to be a girl here in The World. That she gets to pick their guild – Bo doesn't care about anything Trifle does – and use their money, and spend as much time as she can watching Master En.

Because that's the problem, isn't it? Down in the deepest pit of her heart, she knows that no matter how hard she wishes, no matter how strong her devotion, The World is the only place she can even hope to make him love her. It's the only place people look at her own face, not her brother's, and don't ask where Iori's mood swing came from. So if Master En ever acknowledged her feelings, got down on his knees and asked to meet her in real life…she'd be forced to turn him down. She'd have no choice! It makes her stomach hurt, thinking about the shame of it.

Which is one more reason to hate Haseo! He's almost certainly a guy IRL, but does that stop him? Does he have any sense of decency at all? No! He just keeps pestering Master En anyway. And so Saku can only watch, and envy, and get nothing at all.

XX. Judgement

At first everyone treated her like a child, trying to hide the truth, but bit by bit it trickled out like water through their fingers. It had been the same when she first got sick, all the grown-ups trying to hide the details of her own illness from her, like it was scarier to know than to have a mind full of wild possibilities.

Even worse now was how they were behaving towards her brother, the mean things they were saying behind her back. That AIDA had been all his fault, and now the police were looking for him, and CC Corp hadn't done anything bad itself. How could they lie like that, and get away with it? Why wouldn't anyone listen when she tried to tell them the truth, why would they always look so concerned and try to change the subject, as if she was stupid?

She wasn't stupid. The people making up lies were stupid, because they'd be found out eventually, and the people believing them were stupid, for not bothering to hear her brother's side of the story. All Ovan had wanted to do was save her, and he definitely couldn't have meant to hurt anybody else along the way, because he was too kind for that. So Aina would only ever think kind thoughts about him in return, no matter what anyone else said, ever.

XXI. The World

She was so proud of them. All Morganna's little children, proving that good could always rise glowing from the ashes of the bad. She dreamed of their pasts, and their futures, and of things that would never happen (but might have, if things had gone ever so slightly differently). She dreamed of the good, and the bad, and the bittersweet, and as she dreamed she smiled.

All of Morganna's little children, and all the other children of The World, the old and young, the kind and cruel, those who were barely here and those who seldom left. She dreamed of laughter and tears, love and hate, death and rebirth. Skeith's bold son, who had swung from boiling rage to such a deep well of courage. Innis' gentle daughter, with the wings and voice of a sweet little bird. Magus' with his charming ways, Fidchell's with his prodigious wisdom, Gorre's with their balance of shyness and strength, Macha's with his boundless love, Tarvos' with her devotion to duty. And Corbenik's, the lost one, wherever he was now. Aura slept her strange sleep, dreaming of them all…and as she dreamed, she smiled.