Lost and Found

Sakaki's furious scream warped into a roar of static. A tide of oil-black bubbles swamped the arena; a vast golden AIDA spread its wings, like a deformed carrion bird or butterfly. It kept on screaming in Sakaki's voice, spitting frenzied threats, while Sage Palace blurred into Avatar Space.

"It's no use," Endrance said. Until minutes ago, he'd fooled everyone into thinking he was on Sakaki's side, but this turnaround made more sense than his betrayal ever had. Haseo accepted him back as an ally without question. "He's given his body and mind over to AIDA…"

"That bastard!" Haseo replied, with fervour. But they'd always known it would end this way, hadn't they? Sakaki was too far gone to be shown mercy. Finally they'd get to face each other, finally Skeith could tear him down into nothing.

He didn't waste time. Crimson patterns flared across his PC, volatile energy pulsing and strengthening. Skeith's presence surged up, and-

Pain ripped into his chest, dragged him to his knees; the patterns flickered and burned out. He was still weak from AIDA's assault – but Sakaki was right there, he had to be beaten, there was no time for weakness.

"Damn it!" he gasped. Endrance hovered by his side, a reminder of all the people who were counting on him, the people he needed to protect. He couldn't let them down, not now. Not ever again.

"Haseo, are you okay…?"

"It's fine! I can do this!"

Quickly. Last chance. He struggled to his feet, tried calling Skeith again, but his voice choked off, useless. Damn it, no. Victorian poised itself to attack - too huge to evade, too powerful to resist, and all Haseo could do was glare upwards, wait to meet the strike in desperate defiance.

The instant before it hit, something swept in front of him, a solid purple shape deflecting the impact. A…hand? An Avatar's hand! Haseo stared, astonished, as Macha's claws raked Victorian's throat and drove it away. The white half-mask over her face, the shimmering veil, the great skirt of rose petals that seemed to fill half the sky - and Endrance, mirroring his Avatar's gesture of cool disdain.

"Endrance!" Haseo cried. Relief warped into fear for his friend. "Stop, it's too dangerous!"

Endrance gave a calm smile, sweeping his hair away from his eyes. "Don't worry, Haseo. You've fought one battle already, so let me handle this…"

"That's not how it works!"

Victorian was already recovering, drawing Endrance's attention. Haseo cursed, and did the only thing he could think of: his PC dissolved into a crimson haze, fusing Skeith's diminished strength with Macha's.

It felt strange, seeing – sensing things through the other but not being in control, like a bad, too-vivid dream. Macha was far larger and less fragile than Skeith, but slower, her skirts dragging as she weaved to avoid a sparkling spray of missiles. She scratched the air, summoning sickles of light to counter-attack, and when Victorian charged she faced it head-on, grabbing its wings and wrenching them with graceful brutality (a real creature's bones would have splintered, but AIDA had none). Victorian headbutted her, kicked at her torso to drive her off, and Haseo felt Endrance wince. Macha was stronger than she'd been at Demon Palace, but her enemy made an even match.

Whirling clouds of petals rebuffed the worst of Victorian's beam attacks. Macha hurled back his Elegant Orbs, then darted close to tear at the stunned body, with Skeith's bloodlust driven into every hit. But Victorian kept inflicting damage, until Macha's mask was cracked, her veil ragged, the roses withering.

"Haseo!" Endrance called suddenly, voice weary as it echoed inside Haseo's head. "Take back your power, let me finish this."

"What? Like hell I will! You can't beat him alone!" But even as Haseo protested he felt their link fracturing, splitting apart, shoving his consciousness away. He tried to resist, and found himself reaching out with his own PC's arms, staring helplessly as AIDA and Avatar clashed far above him.

Macha's petals splayed open to Data Drain, neon grids crowned by a glowing eye. But Victorian wasn't hurt enough yet, and before Haseo could yell a warning, it charged. Data Drain's beam pierced its golden heart, in the same instant as its wings wrapped around Macha's body, smothering her, tightening to crush. Both fell together, in a screaming haze of shattering data.

Sage Palace flashed back into focus. Sakaki had vanished, AIDA's blackness was melting away. Endrance's body hit the ground in silence.

"No!" Haseo found enough strength to run to him, dropping to his knees at Endrance's side, trying to lift him up. The PC was already dissolving, colours peeling off into raw grids and outlines, surrounded by a fog of fading data. "Damn it! Don't you dare-" He choked a little, trying to keep his voice steady, failing. "Endrance, you can't!"

Endrance sighed, lifting a half-erased hand to stroke Haseo's cheek. "I'm sorry…that I wasn't powerful enough. But…I did protect you…"

"…Yeah," Haseo replied quietly, the ache in his chest pure, lead-heavy grief now. It was happening again, he'd failed to save somebody again… "Endrance, you - you'll wake up. I promise. I'll make sure you wake up."

"I know you will…" Endrance murmured, smiling (why did they always go so calmly, why did they never look as scared as Haseo felt?). His hand was completely translucent, each word fainter and fainter. "I always have the deepest faith in you, Haseo…"

"I know," Haseo said, and the guilt bit harder because he'd actually been surprised when Endrance struck Sakaki.

"Haseo… I…"

Endrance melted into a mist of light.

The announcer shouted disbelievingly in the background, but Haseo ignored him; it didn't matter if the crowd were jeering or cheering. He was supposed to be growing stronger, better able to protect his friends – it had been an effort to make friends in the first place, to let them in and risk losing them again. And he was losing them. All this, and he still wasn't good enough.

Offline he let out a shaky sigh, and reached for a drink without looking; he always kept one in the same spot beside the keyboard. The glass felt cold compared to the sickened, boiling rush of his blood, stressful adrenaline built up with no way out.

"Haseo." Kuhn, his tone sombre, spoke in party chat from somewhere in the spectators' stands. "Uh - you're okay, right?"

"I'm fine. Glad you are, too," Haseo replied, stoic, automatic.

"Yeah. Atoli's here with me, and we've just been contacted by Pi. She's found Yata. Sorry about the timing, but..."

"Where are we headed?"

"We planned to meet at Raven's home. But now Endrance is a Lost One, I don't know what's going to happen. Why was it his Avatar that took on Sakaki?"

"It doesn't matter. Let's go," Haseo said, and warped out of the arena. He was glad of this new development, hurrying him along before he could stop to dwell on things any more. Finding Yata was a step forward, a step to eradicating AIDA, so the quicker it was taken the quicker Endrance would recover. Endrance, and the others before him.

Focus. Don't become paralysed by emotion. Focus.

He didn't speak to Kuhn or Atoli as they left Lumina Cloth, though they were both clearly troubled as well. By the time they reached the home, Pi also seemed aware of the situation.

"Haseo, is it true? Did Endrance really become a Lost One?"

"It's true. Tell us about Yata."

"Master Yata isn't going anywhere at present. To lose an Epitaph User completely is far more serious," said Pi. "In fact-"

"If you want to help Endrance, there's one thing you can do," Haseo said, an idea forming. "You collect data on all the Epitaph Users. Our real life details too, right? So can you get hold of a phone number?" He didn't remember for certain, but he thought he'd had to provide one when he made his game account.

"Possibly, but…"

"Don't try saying it's confidential. You think he wouldn't tell me if I asked?" It felt weird saying that, using Endrance's feelings as an argument, but nobody could deny the truth of it. Especially not today.

Pi frowned, but replied gently, "You know he can't answer."

"Someone else might, and I'll say he needs help! Okay?" he snapped. Why the hell was she acting so hesitant? Didn't she get that it was the right thing to do? And right now it was the only thing Haseo could do, the only thing that might instantly help.

"Very well. Let me check his files," she said, not sharpening her tone to match his. The number was sent via Short Mail minutes later, along with Endrance's real name (which gave everything another miserable dimension, clearer images of someone lying alone in the room they seldom left; Haseo knew that much already, from emails they'd exchanged).

He removed the M2D, and reached for his phone. It rang six times before someone answered. A woman. Shino had lived by herself, so the phone just rang and rang when he called her, but Endrance said that he lived with his mother, so…

"Hi. Uh, I'm a friend of…Kaoru's," he said, then cleared his throat and swallowed, nausea resurfacing. "Can I speak to him?" He didn't know why he'd used Endrance's first name. That was overly familiar.

"A friend of my son's?" the woman asked, politely sceptical.

"Yeah. My name's Haseo. Honestly, I'm sort of worried about him. His character collapsed in the game, and now he won't say anything. We play an online game together. That's how I know him."

"I see." The faint sound of footsteps, then knocking on a door. "Kaoru? There's someone called Haseo on the phone for you. Do you know that name?" No reply, of course. "Kaoru? …I'm going to come in, okay?"

A shocked gasp, and the connection failed.

Haunted, Ryou set the phone down and replaced his M2D. To join the remaining Epitaph Users, to figure out where they'd go from here. At least Endrance had never told him not to cry.

It wasn't tough, getting from Tokyo to this coastal town in Kanagawa Prefecture; people liked visiting the ocean, so the travel networks were good. Ryou took the right trains, found directions to the right hospital. Just like he'd done for Shino, all those months ago. A nurse told him the ward and room number, too busy to check his claim to be family (the hospital's computer network was malfunctioning, some unknown bug). It was easy; it only felt tough.

The door handle was cold, and the hinges creaked; he pushed it open slowly, as if the noise might wake the patient, as if waking would be a bad thing. Closed it tight behind him, because Endrance – because Kaoru would probably hate this place, all these strangers. He'll want to leave quickly once he's better, Ryou thought. This might be the first time he's been out in years.

There was no real disapproval attached to that, though he knew that's how you were supposed to look at hikikomori. Looking down on them. But you couldn't do that to someone who'd put themselves in here, in this state, in your place, and done nothing but smile about it.

"Hey, Endrance," he said, to the figure lying still and silent under thin hospital blankets.

Ichinose Kaoru had light, shoulder-length hair, arranged over the pillow by a careful hand. His mother's, Ryou guessed, noticing the flowers on a table, their splash of brightness trying to compensate for all the dull sorrow of the room; there was no mark of anybody else. An IV fed into pale skin at the elbow, just the same as Shino's. Tubes and monitors and graphs, Ryou knew what everything did, and how it felt to be hooked up to it all. Restricting and invasive. He could never get used to seeing people like this.

He sat down in the sole chair, already pulled close to the bedside, and sighed. "Man, you should've seen Saku when she heard what happened. She's been threatening to quit The World, but I'm trying to talk her out of it, for Bo's sake." Not that she seemed to be listening. She'd blamed the whole thing on Haseo, of course. "Oh, and Pi found Yata, but he's still mad at CC Corp for kicking him from the Serpent of Lore. Not that you can blame him. They programmed a great game, but they're morons otherwise."

He paused for thought. Out in the corridor he heard footsteps, voices coughing and chattering. He hunched forward, staring down at his clasped hands, then the floor (linoleum tile, murky cream marbled with grey).

"There's no sign of Sakaki since you beat him. But don't think I'm not pissed at you for using Macha! You showed off." Ryou smiled faintly, but not without a trace of bitterness. "I guess it sort of worked, since I'm here, but…" He hesitated, turning solemn again. "Pi says that because you're a Lost One, you might lose your Avatar. Apparently it's happened before, though that Epitaph User hadn't awakened, so it might be different with you. Nobody knows."

Kaoru lay still as ever, but even if he couldn't hear a word – and Ryou was a realist, he knew that was probably true – he'd be happy once he found out that Ryou had visited him. That was the purpose of this.

And maybe to ease a fraction of Ryou's guilt. Maybe that, too.

Two days later, he visited again. He told Kaoru – it still felt weird thinking of him as Kaoru, not Endrance – about Yata's awakening, Fidchell's prophecy. Two days after that, and Ryou talked a little about Aina taking Bo into an Outer Dungeon, how everyone had panicked, but he wasn't in a good mood. He spent most of the time simply sitting, thinking (a hand unconsciously clasped over the IV scar on his own elbow; that line didn't look like much, but it went all the way to the heart). The flowers were dropping their petals. The next time, feeling stupid and self-conscious, he placed a rose in the vase (lush, dark red, the colour of clotted blood).

And the next time, someone was already in Kaoru's room when Ryou opened the door. A woman in late middle age, beauty worn away by worry lines, pulling a tissue from the sleeve of a heavy coat to dab her cheeks (it wasn't cold outside, or rainy, to merit that coat). She glanced up, and her surprised stare pinned Ryou to the spot.

"Um…sorry," he mumbled, turning around to leave.

"Haseo?"

He hesitated, then turned back. "You must be Kaoru's mother."

"That's right." She bunched the tissue between her hands, then gave a watery smile. "Have you visited him before? You left this?" she asked, indicating the vase; there were fresh flowers in it, but she hadn't thrown the rose away. It looked gaudily out of place amongst the shorter-stemmed pastel blooms.

"He, uh. Really likes roses," Ryou explained, embarrassment curling down through his bones.

"I didn't know that," said Kaoru's mother, not in a doubting, accusatory way, but gentle and a little sad. A less-than-comfortable silence began to grow, before she added, "You called when he was taken to hospital. I didn't think anyone worried about him, apart from me."

Ryou's chest tightened at that, though it was nothing he hadn't realised already. He wanted to apologise, explain that Kaoru's condition was partly his fault; he wanted to offer hope, explain that he was doing his best to find a remedy. She wouldn't understand, would think he was just another net addict who couldn't tell fact from fantasy. He made excuses, said he'd leave her to sit alone with her son, and caught the train home.

After the Rebirth swept AIDA from the network, Pi asked how Endrance was doing, and mentioned that Macha the Temptress hadn't manifested in anybody else yet. Saku tried to keep Bo from speaking to Haseo, without success. The Lost Ones began to wake up, but not Shino, not Alkaid, and not Endrance.

Until one evening, after travelling straight from school on an overcrowded train, Ryou found Kaoru's bed empty. Hope rushed up before common sense took over, rationalising that Kaoru must have been moved somewhere else, for some useless medical test. But the sheets were thrown back, spilling halfway onto the floor, everything in unprofessional disarray. Like he'd fled of his own accord.

But that was impossible, wasn't it? There was no way Kaoru should be able to just get up and wander off, like waking from a nap.

But a Lost One wasn't an ordinary coma victim, so…

He hailed a nurse; she confirmed that Kaoru should be in bed, that no change in condition had been recorded. Not waiting to see what she'd do, Ryou ran off to search.

He didn't understand why Kaoru would leave the room. Wouldn't he feel safer there, and worse out here? Wouldn't he get lost? And how far could he actually travel, anyway? Not far, definitely. Even if he wasn't an ordinary coma victim, it must've taken some kind of toll on him.

Ryou passed an elevator and pushed open the doors to a stairwell (people were lazy, the stairs wouldn't be crowded). Leaning over the railings, he glimpsed a pale-haired figure sitting half a block down, huddled silently as if in a daze.

"Endrance?" he called. The figure's head jerked up. He said nothing, but rose to his feet in slow, cautious motions, clutching the balustrade for balance (and holding something against his chest: an IV bag, linked to the line in his arm, that he'd been smart or squeamish enough not to try ripping out of himself). Ryou's heart gave an odd twist.

He hurried down to Kaoru's step, and-

"…Haseo?"

-and for the first time they truly looked at each other, face to face. He didn't even have to introduce himself.

"It is…" Kaoru lit up, then; such open expressiveness where Ryou had grown used to seeing the blankness of sleep. He reached out, the tips of his fingers barely brushing Ryou's cheek, like the need to make sure this was real was warring with the fear of crossing a boundary. As if Ryou would actually get mad about that right now, or do anything other than smile right back at him. "Haseo, you… You came to find me…"

"Yeah."

Kaoru swayed forward with a soft, gasping sound, his free hand clinging onto Ryou like a drowning man to driftwood. "Hey! What…" Ryou's startled protest faded into calm. Endrance was back, Endrance was safe. This couldn't be deleted.

"Oh, I'm so glad," Kaoru whispered, voice hoarse from lack of use, but with a touch of Endrance's distinct melodic tone buried within it. "I was looking for an internet connection. I was worried about you…"

"Man, you think I'm worse off than you right now? Let's go back to your room."

"…Right. I'm sorry." Kaoru shifted away, pressing a hand to his forehead (a patient's bracelet of white plastic looped around the wrist). Ryou grabbed his shoulder, afraid he might fall. "Sorry, I'm a little light-headed. I think it's the happiness of meeting you like this…"

"Uh, I don't think that's what it is. And keep that up."

"Hmm?" The arm holding the IV bag had dropped to Kaoru's side. Ryou pushed it up, forcing him to keep the bag higher, at shoulder level. He didn't know the specifics, but he thought there was some blood pressure thing you had to be careful of.

"Up. Come on." Still supporting his friend, Ryou turned them around, and they climbed the stairs at a slow, steady pace. He knew Kaoru wasn't taking some sort of liberty, by leaning on him so heavily (though for someone so tall, he weighed barely anything). It was necessary.

Kaoru's fingers were tight on Ryou's arm when they passed through the corridor, anxiety ill-subdued, but he seemed to relax once they were shut inside his room. He sank onto the bed, crossing his arms over his chest the way Endrance sometimes did, but with a tense edge that hinted at suppressed pain. Despite that, he was smiling again, and the way he looked at Ryou was all warmth and quiet joy.

Ryou glanced at the chair, then sat beside him on the bed, instead. "Are you okay?"

"I'm… All I need is to be by your side, and I'll be fine," Kaoru said. He looked towards the flowers. "Ah, the rose is wilting…"

Ryou didn't say he was the one who'd brought it. Either Kaoru would figure it out, or he wouldn't. Anyway, a nurse bustled in before he could speak.

"Mr Ichinose! It's good to see you awake, but please don't wander off again," she said, manner not unkind but very businesslike.

"I don't need you to examine me," Kaoru mumbled, slipping from peaceful to sullen, staring fixedly at the floor rather than the nurse's face. He gave a sharp flinch when she plucked the IV bag from his hands, hooking it back onto its stand and frowning at small smears of blood inside the tubing.

"Mr Ichinose, do you know why you were admitted? Doll Syndrome is a serious and little-understood condition. It's important we continue to monitor you. And that you don't interfere with this equipment."

Kaoru glanced at Ryou, then back to the floor. "No. I'm going home now."

"We can't really allow that."

"I…don't care. All I want is to be left alone with Haseo."

"My real name's Misaki Ryou," he pointed out. The nurse gave them a vexed, rather confused look, but left without much more debate. Doubtless she'd be back, though. You couldn't just let an ex-coma patient go skipping off into the sunset, no matter how resistant they were.

"Still social as ever, huh?" Ryou said. That won a weak, awkward smile from Kaoru. "You can't go yet. They need to take your lines out and patch you up, to start with." And then call in a neurologist, and then…a host of other crap that Ryou didn't want to dwell upon. He wanted to be happy right now. Nothing more complicated than that.

"Thank you, for being concerned… I don't mind becoming a Lost One, to wake up to you. I was frightened at first, but now it's really not so bad…"

"What?" It may have been meant as a harmless statement, but that jolted a nerve in Ryou. "You think it's okay this happened?"

Kaoru bowed his head meekly, like he didn't want to choose between making Ryou annoyed or lying.

"You think it's fine how much I worried, just because I did?"

Silence. That wasn't fair. More than anyone else, he'd thought Endrance understood how he felt, how it hurt to fail at keeping someone safe. That's what Endrance talked about in Demon Palace, wasn't it? That's what he'd obsessed over as an AIDA-PC. So Kaoru shouldn't shrug this off now, like nothing happened. It wasn't right.

Ryou opened his mouth to speak, checked himself, turned away in frustration. So much for keeping things uncomplicated. "Just… Stay here."

He strode out into the corridor, letting the door bang closed behind him, harder than he'd meant it to; a man pushing a wheelchair gave him a reprimanding stare. He didn't head to the exit, he wasn't leaving, just…he needed more space to breathe (and shove his baggage out of the way).

…He'd go get a drink, maybe. Or one for Kaoru. He'd just woken up, so it wasn't his fault if he said weird things. He was probably just groggy and freaked out, especially after that miraculous-but-stupid trip down to the stairwell.

By the time Ryou returned with a plastic cup of filtered water, his mood had settled. He peered through the small window set into Kaoru's door, and saw him sitting at the head of the bed, knees drawn up to his chest, face hidden. Ryou cursed under his breath, counted to five, then pushed the door open.

Continued silence as he set the cup down beside the vase, where the rose had dropped another dried, brown-mottled petal.

"…You're right, of course. I acted recklessly. I wanted you to feel safe with me, but I failed utterly…" Kaoru's thin shoulders shook with the weight of a sigh. His face was still masked by the messy fall of his hair. "I'm sorry for not being there, for whatever you've been through between now and then. I…don't know how to atone…"

"Here. You should call your mother, right?" Ryou said, offering his phone.

Kaoru took it wordlessly, and tucked his hair behind his ears before dialling (high cheekbones, shadows lying like dust beneath his eyes). "Hello? I'm awake," he said, and then, "…Yes," and then, "No, I don't think so." He waited a few moments, then gave a mild, puzzled frown and held the phone away from his ear. "Ah, she started crying…"

"I'll wait with you until she gets here."

"But aren't you upset?"

"Do you want me to or not?"

"I do." Kaoru set the phone down and took a careful sip of water, cradling the cup with both hands to keep it steady.

"Don't drink too much too fast."

He nodded obediently. "You know… I had such strange dreams about The World…"

"Yeah? What's happened has been pretty weird, too," Ryou replied, and began to explain it all over again, the discoveries and victories and near-disasters. Kaoru asked the occasional question, sometimes claimed that his dreams had been similar, but mostly he sat and listened. After a while he began to smile again, and Ryou did too, though it wasn't a cosy matter to say that AIDA might not be the end of it, that a greater threat might be waiting to strike, another ghost or malevolent god in the machine.

Kaoru was stupidly, predictably eager to get back into the game and make himself useful. Ryou was okay with that.

It was more awkward once Kaoru's mother arrived: she wasn't happy with his wish to leave, clearly worried sick over him. Ryou wanted to step back and let her take charge, but Kaoru kept dragging him along, blind to his mother's distress. Nobody acted in harmony.

Ryou didn't have to stick that out, of course. He could've bailed and let Mrs Ichinose deal with her son's hang-ups alone. But he didn't. Friends didn't do that – and they really were friends, right? So he stayed, and persuaded Kaoru that it was the best thing to keep resting there, to get his strength back and re-adjust to being awake. Kaoru wouldn't listen to the doctors or his mother, but if Ryou spoke up then he'd listen and see sense.

The air felt very fresh once he exited the hospital, after the clinical-smelling, closed-in corridors. Kaoru had looked paler than usual as Ryou left his room, half-reaching out, then pulling back, restraining himself. It was surprising how much Ryou regretted that goodbye.

Players scattered out of the steam bike's way, and gave Haseo sour looks as it skidded to a halt. He didn't care; even if he'd hit them, it wouldn't have bruised more than their egos. He tried to walk the last part of the journey casually, like he hadn't quit halfway through a sigma server dungeon to race here.

Endrance waited at the end of Mac Anu's longest pier, gazing out to sea. Haseo approached, stood beside him, touched his shoulder briefly and felt relief at the solidity of it. No crumbling, no fading into clouds of zeroes and ones.

"Hey. Welcome back."

Endrance sighed, a quiet sound of contentment, and turned towards him. "It feels like forever since I last stood here. I've been so impatient to see you, Haseo…"

"No taking stupid risks this time, okay?"

"I'll do as you wish."

"How about Macha?"

"…She's still here. She hasn't deserted me, but I think she's upset…"

"Maybe she wants an apology?" Haseo suggested, then paused before adding, "I'm sorry, too. You shouldn't have had to fight Sakaki in the first place."

Endrance tilted his head, smiling. "Did I impress you at least a little, Haseo?" he asked, coyly.

"Yeah, I'll admit it. You did."

"Then…" Endrance glanced away in sudden uncertainty, clasping his hands to his chest. "This may be too much to ask, but…I hope we could meet again someday, in real life. Under better circumstances."

It was a suggestion Haseo had to think about. With hindsight, their time in the hospital hadn't been bad – they'd gotten along, more or less – but it was hard to know how much of Kaoru's awkwardness had been the coma's after-effects, and how much was his natural state. But comparing that to Endrance, what he'd done, how hard he'd fought… The real Kaoru was probably somewhere in between those two personalities, right?

That'd be okay; Haseo could deal with that just fine. Maybe not straight away, but once things settled, once The World was safe and they had nothing else to worry about. It'd be nice, he decided.

"Sure. Okay then."

"Thank you… You don't have to bring me roses again, if you don't wish," Endrance said, smile warming. It was impossible not to return.