Originally Posted by Mokilla

.HAck is gay because all they do is logout and log back in to there world and i thought it was suppose to be like Walking around and fighting and crap but instead they all end up going through realms and disapearing..

Originally Posted by Helbagate

Roughly around 1977 (roughly, because we're never given exact dates), Emma Wielant is born into the rich family of a German winery owner. A few years later, her father dies. Her mother dies when Emma is 18. An uncle is named as her guardian, but he offers to adopt her in order to get at her inheritance. Emma turns him down, but her money is tied up in a trust, and she can't get to it either, until she turns 21. In order to support herself, Emma enters college and studies medical science. On her 21st birthday, because she's pushed herself so hard with her studies, she starts coughing up blood. On her doctor's suggestion, she goes to a resort in southern France to recover. At the resort she experiences some kind of supernatural event which causes her to delve into metaphysical studies (the actual event is not mentioned). Her interest in the unusual includes anthroposophy, the blending of human nature with computers, and the works of Rudolf Steiner. At this time, she is dating a man 20 years older than her. She also finds solace in writing poetry, and begins writing an epic poem called "Epitaph of Twilight".

In the poem, a formless "Wave" is wiping out a race of shadowless sprites. The sprites are defenseless against the Wave and are close to being exterminated. Accompanying the Wave are 8 Phases, each embodying things like death, despair, paranoia, and so on. Helba, the Queen of Darkness, and Apeiron, the King of Light, both form their armies to fight the Wave, but are also ineffective against it. A party of three adventurers, 1 human, and 2 half-sprites that can cast shadows, make the long trek to the edge of the world where the Twilight Dragon lives. Along the way, they are aided by representatives of Helba and Apeiron: Bith the Black and Fili the White. It is believed that the Twilight Dragon alone has the ability to fend off the Wave.

Enter Harald Hoerwick. Very little is known about him prior to his meeting Emma, other than the fact that he's a genius programmer from Germany. Harald also has an interest in anthroposophy, and while attending a seminar on the subject, he meets Emma Wielant and falls in love with her. Emma is only attracted to Harald's programming talents, but they do work together. One day, Emma calls Harald to tell him that she is driving out to meet him. But before she arrives, she is involved in a car crash and dies at age 28, with the "Epitaph of Twilight" still unfinished. Unaware of the accident, Harald waits for her under a gingko tree.

Unable to show his love for Emma while she was alive, Harald decides to use his programming skills to create "Fragment", a role-playing game based on Epitaph. Exactly how closely the game is based on the poem is unclear. Epitaph had been briefly posted on Emma's website, but was removed soon after. Later, it became very popular in fan circles, and was altered by fanfics and forgeries. It is now impossible to tell what the original text of the Epitaph said. Either way, Harald's vision of Fragment was to blend the boundaries between human nature and computers, by creating Aura. Aura is intended to be the Ultimate AI; she exists solely within the game and is an expression of "Harald's and Emma's love for each other" (based on his own deluded preconceptions). Harald needed a method for informing Aura with human emotions and behaviors - to do this, he chose a multi-player role playing game as his main platform, and created 8 AI programs for gathering data from the players within the game, to be funneled to Aura. He based his AI programs on the 8 Phases from the Epitaph. Morganna is the name that Harald gives to the program that collects the data from the 8 Phases to be fed to Aura.

Originally Posted by Helbagate

Pluto's Kiss

Leading up to the year 2005, cyber crimes were becoming more of a problem world-wide. The World Network Council (WNC) was formed under the U.N. to address these issues. However, the WNC was more concerned with internal politics and soon came to be viewed as a joke. In 2003, a virus named "Deadly Flash" caused 7 deaths. The Japanese man that created the virus was caught and sentenced to death. In 2005, "Pluto's Kiss" hit computers world-wide, causing massive shutdowns for 77 minutes. The culprit is a 10-year-old school student, who is also caught and faces the death penalty. Among the victims of these viruses is the "M Corporation" (Microsoft?), which goes out of business. Only one operating system remained unscathed by Pluto's Kiss. That OS, Altimit, receives the WNC's blessings to become the universal OS for every computer in the world.

About this time, a young girl who later creates the character "Subaru" in The World undergoes some kind of problem or accident that cripples her and leaves her trapped in a wheelchair. We're never told the exact nature of her handicap, only that she has not been able to walk or run for 4 years by the time she meets Tsukasa.

2006 A.D. Harald Hoerwick brings "Fragment" to the offices of Altimit. Several programmers from Altimit leave the company to form CyberConnect Corp., and concentrate on re-engineering Fragment as a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) that they call "The World". The WNC has put a ban on computer games as being a distraction from the development of the Altimit OS. However, the public is starving for entertainment, and the WNC okays the release of "The World", which makes its debut at the end of 2007. One of Harald's earlier attempts to create Aura results in the birth of Lycoris, a "failed AI" that Harald rejects as not being perfect enough to become "his Aura". Lycoris manages to survive in The World, avoiding CC Corp's debugging crew until some time after people start falling into comas. Even so, Lycoris still succeeds at living until finally meeting Zefie, several years after the elimination of Morganna.

During the intervening time from 2008 to 2009, there is a lot of turnover at both Altimit and CC Corp. The World undergoes a number of upgrades to the code, and pretty soon no one at CC Corp. knows how the game's core engines work any more.



Morganna Mode Gone

Around the end of 2008, Harald realizes that something has gone wrong with Morganna. Morganna has gone "AI" and has not yet awakened Aura. He decides that the only choice is to "leave his body behind" and enter the game world to talk to Morganna directly. Morganna, now called "Morganna Mode Gone" attacks Harald, and he flees to remote parts of The World's domains. Another software upgrade occurs, sealing off a part of him (the Broken Man) in the Upside Down City. He does manage to post a message to the boards of The World directing players to come visit him somewhere in the game, initiating the first quest for the Key of the Twilight. However, we're never really told what the Key is.

Subaru starts playing in The World as a way to make friends. She's easily harassed by other players until Crim, the Red Lightning, decides to take her under his wing and shows her how to become a stronger person. The two of them form the Crimson Knights, a volunteer group of players that enforce the rules of netiquette with CC Corp.'s blessings. Eventually, the Crimson Knights grows too large and suffocating for Crim, and he resigns to return to his carefree life as a wanderer.

Some time later, a school girl begins playing The World under the name "Tsukasa". She's been abused by her father most of her life, and tries to escape into the game to get away from him. Morganna senses that the male character Tsukasa is just what she needs for her plan to twist Aura into something evil. Over time, Morganna attempts to pull Tsukasa's consciousness out of her body in the real world, and into the game environment.



Give us a Sign

Finally, in 2009 A.D., one year after Harald had posted his message on the boards, Morganna succeeds in the first step of her plan, getting the "boy" Tsukasa to agree to stop logging out of The World. In the real world, the girl playing Tsukasa falls into a coma and is taken to the hospital. As a protection, Morganna gives the barbell-shaped "Guardian" to Tsukasa. The voiceless cat, Maha/Macha (both spellings are used), acts as Morganna's messenger to Tsukasa. Maha is one of the Phases that accompany the Wave, as mentioned in the Epitaph. Morganna's plan is to elevate Tsukasa's moods, then dash them into despair, with all of the negative thoughts and emotions that result being fed into Aura (since Harald designed the Phases as data collection systems, Maha is just being used as it was intended). Once Aura is completely subverted, her awakening will fill The World with overwhelming negativity. Morganna starts out by pretending to be Tsukasa's long dead mother, and then having the boy make friends with Mimiru.

Tsukasa attracts the attentions of several players, including Bear, Mimiru, Silver Knight and Subaru. Bear is a big, hulking blademaster that likes helping out newbies in the game as a way to compensate for his divorce, and for being estranged from his own son. Mimiru is just a high school girl that can't resist someone that tries to pull away from her. Subaru, being confined to a wheelchair in the real world, empathizes with Tsukasa's being unable to log out of the game. Silver Knight, however, views Tsukasa's involvement with Maha, and possession of Guardian, to be a violation of the player rules and wants him evicted from the game. Bear, Mimiru and Subaru want to help Tsukasa in any way they can, and believe that obtaining the Key of the Twilight will somehow let him log out of the game. On the other hand are Crim, BT and Sora. Crim likes enforcing justice in the game, and initially considers Tsukasa's use of Guardian against other players as an affront to his sense of justice. BT, being the schemer that she is, equates Tsukasa's violation of the rules of The World (i.e. - being unable to log out for weeks at a time) with the rumored "unlimited powers" of the Key of the Twilight. She wants the Key to gain those powers, and thinks that manipulating Tsukasa will get her the Key. Sora, a ninja-style Twin Blade that goes around killing other players, wants to gain Tsukasa as his ally. Crim and Silver Knight want to punish Tsukasa for violating the rules, and BT and Sora want to manipulate the boy for their own ends. In all cases, the Key of the Twilight is the focus point of everyone's attentions.

Silver Knight becomes impatient with Subaru and ignores her orders to leave Tsukasa alone. Realizing that the Crimson Knights have overstepped their bounds, and wanting to regain her own sense of freedom in the game, Subaru disbands the Crimson Knights. Later attempts to reform the Knights as an autonomous body fail, and the Crimson Knights disappear into obscurity.

Bear tracks down Tsukasa's real-world body, lying on life support in the hospital. Shortly thereafter, Tsukasa's father tries to have Tsukasa removed from life support legally; when that fails, he pulls the plug himself. The doctors rescue Tsukasa in time, but Morganna senses that Tsukasa is about to wake up in the real world, and punishes him for trying to leave her in the game. From Bear, Tsukasa learns about the Key of the Twilight, and he wants to use its powers to make Aura wake up. Morganna doesn't like Tsukasa's acting on his own volition and intends to punish him for it. In trying to learn more about the underlying roots of the game, Bear makes contact with a professional hacker who calls herself "Helba", after the Queen of Darkness in the Epitaph. Helba points Bear in the direction of the Upside Down City (an abandoned field initially designed as a root town), where Tsukasa encounters the Broken Man. The Broken Man is all that remains of one part of Harald's personality. The Broken Man's message is that he wants someone to protect "our Aura". Tsukasa understands this to mean the floating, sleeping girl located in the "safe place" field that Morganna lets him visit. Later, Tsukasa finds himself being attracted to Subaru and they spend a lot of time together. He eventually takes Subaru to the "safe place" to show Aura to her, but Morganna has moved the sleeping girl elsewhere. Morganna gets upset at this "betrayal" of her loyalties and punishes Tsukasa so hard that he almost loses his mind. Morganna decides that she doesn't need the boy anymore, and she tries a more direct attack against Aura - eating away at the sleeping girl's code.

Ultimately, Bear tracks down a slightly more intact version of the Broken Man, and learns a little more about the nature of Aura. In essence, Aura was to be the physical display of Harold's love for Emma Weilant, with Morganna's role being one of awakening Aura to get events rolling. However, Morganna isn't following her instructions, and instead she has used Tsukasa to make Aura evil. Harold tells Bear that "black" Aura must not be allowed to wake up, then his code is dissolved when Morganna discovers that Harold is talking to outsiders. Helba gets more involved in Bear's research, and all of the involved parties rendezvous at her secret hideout - Net Slum, home to failed AIs that were rejected from the game. Tsukasa recovers his mind in time to join the party at Net Slum. There, Helba tells the party that somehow Tsukasa has become linked with Aura. She thinks that if Tsukasa decides to log-out from the World, that it will cause Aura to wake up again. Morganna decides that Subaru has gotten too close to Tsukasa, and now views her as a threat. Guardian is sent to attack Subaru in Net Slum, where Tsukasa finally decides to try to protect her. In the meantime, Sora has followed Maha to Morganna's lair, where he spies Aura. Sora offers to help Morganna, just because he can. (While talking to Sora, Morganna says that it's the uncertainty of their responses - i.e. no absolutes - that she hates most about humans. That is, she's talking about "Liminality" here.) Morganna orders Maha to use a Guardian to kill Subaru, but Tsukasa's own Guardian protects her and both Guardians cancel each other out. The party decides to leave Net Slum and relocate to Hidden Forbidden Holy Ground (the Cathedral). Morganna attacks the party with another Guardian, and they succeed in defeating it. So she sends three more. Maha, holding a stalk of aromatic grass (given to him by Tsukasa), warps into the Cathedral to sacrifice itself while destroying the Guardians and thus saving Tsukasa.

Morganna warps the wayward boy and the two girls to a desert field, to pit them against each other. The three are separated and paired off with illusions that pretend to hate them (Tsukasa with a fake Subaru and fake Mimiru, etc.) All three heroes refuse to be tricked, and the illusions are revealed to be effects created by Morganna's "slugs". Morganna gives up the charade and warps the three to her current lair, where Aura and Sora are waiting for them. Tsukasa has learned how to take responsibility for "his" life, and is no longer afraid of those that would use force to control him - like Morganna, or his father. Tsukasa announces his desire to return to the real world, which causes Aura to wake up. .

Originally Posted by Helbagate

Sora betrays Morganna, allowing Tsukasa, Mimiru, Subaru and Aura time to escape the lair and return to Net Slum (Tsukasa implies that Aura is not fully "something" (born?) yet). In her wrath, Morganna summons up the first Phase mentioned in the Epitaph - Skeith - and uses the Data Drain viral attack to trap Sora's game data within Skeith's weapon. In the real world, Sora's player collapses in a coma. Skeith is sent to recover Aura from Net Slum. Helba senses Skeith's approach, can do nothing to stop the monster, and deactivates Net Slum, kicking all of the players there out of the game. Tsukasa succeeds in waking up from her coma, and leaves the hospital (probably taking Bear up on his offer to adopt her). Outside of the hospital, Tsukasa recognizes a girl being pushed in a wheelchair as Subaru's real-world player, and they rush towards each other to grasp hands. Finally, back in The World, Morganna's voice repeats what she first said to Tsukasa at the beginning of the TV series, implying that she has found another player that fits her requirements (probably Elk, a weak-willed twinblade who shows up at the beginning of Infection, in the company of Mia - the reincarnation of Macha)orders

About six months pass. Altimit Corp. has been building its OS into everything, from PCs to hand-helds, to traffic light control circuits. But, rather than creating a kind of cyber utopia, Altimit is fighting to keep the lid on some problems that are starting to crop up because of the tight-knit connection between the code of The World, and the Altimit OS it is running on. CC Corp. creates a debugging department, where the online debuggers take on the roles of armored warriors that call themselves the Cobalt Knights. The knights have special weapons designed for deleting bad code and failed NPCs. Watari, an assistant to Tokuoka eventually becomes the head of the Cobalt Knights department. One of the "failed AI's" that he deletes is "an upside-down man" located in Hidden, Forbidden, Holy-Ground.

Junichiro Tokuoka, the Director of the Japanese Release of The World has been snooping around to learn more about the recent spate of players of the game falling into comas. In the last six months, there have been six victims in Japan alone. He's starting to raise some embarrassing questions to upper management, and he gets forcibly ejected from the company. Then, he learns about Mai Minase, a Japanese girl that fell into a coma along with her friend, but managed to recover a little while later. Through flashbacks, Mai shows us that being Data Drained by Skeith is the cause of the comas. Initially, Mai is reluctant to work with Junichiro, but she becomes determined to save her friend, and teams up with the older man to act as his online research assistant.

Mai's friend, who remained in a coma, had run a character in the game named "Sieg". Digging into Sieg's e-mail, Junichiro finds that there are two other players that are friends of the boy - Yuki Aihara and Kyoko Tohno. Grabbing at any straws he can, he arranges a meeting with Yuki in Yokohama. He's delayed in getting out of Tokyo, so Yuki goes to a department store to watch a movie. In the middle of the film, power is lost to the building. Yuki meets up with a strange woman, who later claims to know her sister-in-law, and they make their way through the air and elevator shafts down to the first floor and out of the building. Outside, cars lie scattered across the road, the streets are deserted and fires rage around the city. The implication is that the problems in the real world are the result of the server reset in the gaming environment when Skeith was defeated by Kite. Phone service has also crashed. Junichiro meets up with Yuki at about the time that power and phone service is restored. Mai calls Junichiro, and Kyoko calls Yuki. During her researches, Mai has learned that Harald Hoerwick is the one that created the basis for The World and she tells this to Junichiro. Kyoko overhears Junichiro's conversation. She is interested in the Epitaph of Twilight, and asks to meet Junichiro in her home prefecture of Gifu.

Originally Posted by Helbagate

he Infection Grows

At the same time that Junichiro contacts Mai, a 14-year-old boy logs into The World as "Kite". He is a friend of the famous Orca, of the Azure Sea. Orca has talked Kite into trying out the game. But soon after, they see Aura flying through the dungeon, being chased by Skeith. Aura tries to give the Book of Twilight to Orca, but Skeith is right behind her and Data Drains Orca, putting his player into a coma. Kite receives the Book, which rewrites his character data and gives him the power to perform Data Drain and to hack into areas of The World that are otherwise sealed off. Helba has been monitoring Skeith's activities and sees what has happened to Kite. From this point on, Helba acts as Kite's guide, providing information about The World that the game's Sys Admin is trying to delete. Kite encounters Black Rose, a new player that has entered the game to learn why her brother, Kazu, has fallen into a coma. They team up and start exploring The World. Eventually, Kite fights Skeith and Data Drains it, turning the infinite-hit-point monster into something killable. Skeith is defeated, but this has caused a server reset (which knocks out power and phone service to large sections of Yokohama in the real world). The World's Sys Admin, Lios, gets involved and tries to delete Kite's character data before any more damage occurs. (He fails.)

Kite makes friends with a few other players in the game, including Wiseman - one of the only people online that still has a copy of one of the earliest versions of the Epitaph of Twilight - and Mia, a player that looks like a cross between a rabbit and a cat. Kite and Wiseman win over Helba, Lios and Balmung of the Azure Sky (a friend of Orca's and another fighter for the cause of justice in The World) to create a team that can take on the remaining Phases while minimizing the damage in the real world. Kite defeats Innis, Magus, Fidchell and Gorre, leaving three Phases left to fight, and causing more server resets, and more havoc around Japan in the real world. One of Skeith's final acts was to split Aura up into 3 parts. Kite tracks down two of the parts, but every time he tries to talk to her, a different Phase, Cubia - the Hidden One - arrives and interferes. Rather than getting beaten, Cubia fights for a short time then runs away. Kite's team tries to quarantine the area of The World where the Phases are originating from, with the intent of eliminating the remaining 3 Phases, Cubia, and ultimately the Wave itself. The hope is that once Aura is fully restored, she will reset the game as Harald had originally intended.

Kite also finds Skeith's weapon, a large red cross, hovering in one of the dungeons. Kite approaches the cross, and it dissolves, turning back into Sora. Sora thanks Kite, gifts the boy with his twin blade weapons, and disappears. Presumably, this means that the real-world Sora has finally recovered from his coma.



The Blending of Borders

Back in the real world, Junichiro visits Kyoko in Gifu, Japan. Helba is monitoring their e-mails and phone conversations, as well as putting her retainer, Bith the Black, on their tail. Helba is also watching Mai and Yuki. She sends cryptic clues to each of them, directing Kyoko and Junichiro to different locations around Gifu. Gifu is an isolated prefecture in the mountains of Japan, where supernatural events tend to occur. Each of Helba's clues send the duo to sites of unusual, or psychic activity that has taken place, in an attempt to prepare them for an explanation of what Harald had been up to. Eventually, they come face to face with Bith the Black. Bith explains that the current problem in The World comes from the blending of boundaries between the real world and the game world. Harald had managed to take the essence of a human and merge it into the game in the computer. Unfortunately, that essence - Morganna - isn't assimilating into its new environment well. Bith wants Junichiro and teammates to make the final plunge to help that essence along on its ultimate path - this plunge involves breaking into CC Corp., and risking getting arrested and booked as criminals.

The stories of Junichiro and Kite start to dovetail now. Kite, Wiseman and Helba devise a plan where Kite is to lure the Wave to a particular field, and then Lios is to contain it and Helba is to infect it with a virus. After a couple of false starts, Kite encounters Mia - the cat rabbit - at the bottom of the dungeon. Mia is actually a redesign of the Maha code, and had been allowed to wander The World on her own, when she'd teamed up with Kite's party. Along the way, Mia had picked up a weak-willed boy running a twinblade character named Elk (Morganna was probably talking to Elk at the end of .Hack//Sign). Elk is in love with Mia, and follows her everywhere. As a software-based Phase, the constant server resets have really screwed Mia up, but she tries to resist Morganna's command to revert to her true form. Eventually, Mia becomes Macha - the Temptress - and attacks Kite's party. Kite defeats Macha, killing her. Elk witnesses this, turns traitor, steals Helba's virus and gives it to Morganna. Morganna develops a vaccine, prompting Helba to develop a new virus. Kite goes on to defeat the next Phase, Tarvos, the Avenger, and finally gets a chance to talk to Aura. Aura is whole again, and she warns Kite to stay away from Cubia. Cubia and the Bracelet are opposite halves of the same code. If Cubia is defeated, the Bracelet will be destroyed. Undaunted and wanting to get things over with, Kite confronts Cubia. Realizing that a direct assault on Cubia is impossible, Kite tells Black Rose to attack the Bracelet. Black Rose does so, and both the Bracelet and Cubia are destroyed.

Unfortunately, Kite no longer has a way of Data Draining Corbenik. The team proceeds with their plan anyway, and Kite faces the final Phase in battle. The party is helpless without the Bracelet, and Corbenik seems destined to win. Then, Kite calls out for any help he can get, and ends up attracting every single PC that had been Data Drained and trapped within the game, including Kazu, Orca and Sieg. With their support, Kite breaks Corbenik's code and sees a chance for final victory.

In the real world, Junichiro, Mai, Yuki, Kyoko and Bith enter the Tokyo Maritime Backup System Center in Tokyo Bay and proceed to hack into the Center's main computer. Security guards discover the break in and attempt to capture the trespassers. Junichiro and Mai set up a server on the main computer, and try to link up with Helba's server. Mai has entered the game, and she passes out with the approach of the Wave. But, she's seen Orca and Sieg, still fighting in The World. This causes Junichiro to try harder. He links up with Helba, downloads evidence of CC Corp's involvement in the players falling into comas, and escapes from the control room. Two of the guards break into the room, only to find Bith, who claims to be checking on the security of the Maritime Center. He wants to go to the main office with the guards to report his findings. The three women escape safely, but Junichiro stays behind to hold off the remaining guards. Junichiro gets his moment to play hero, and ends up getting beaten to a pulp.

Originally Posted by Helbagate

Near defeat, Corbenik's last action is to send out Data Drain attacks against EVERYONE. Black Rose, Balmung, Wiseman and the rest get zapped out of The World. Kite is next, but Elk has a change of heart and leaps in front of Kite in time to save him. Regaining his resolve, Kite rushes forward, evading the Data Drain attacks, and jumps towards Corbenik. At the last moment, Aura appears between Kite and Corbenik - both Aura and Corbenik are destroyed by Kite's Twinblade attack. Kite is stunned, but soon discovers that all of the outside coma victims are recovering, including Kazu, Sieg and Orca. Additionally, Aura and Morganna have their code reset, and they also return to The World. For Morganna, this means that she has become more peaceful. For Aura, this means that the Ultimate AI has been "born".

Eventually, Aura visits Kite and gives him the Bracelet again. Helba contacts the boy, giving him her member address, and the addresses of Subaru, Sora and Tsukasa. Helba's stats are completely maxed out, and she is a great addition to the game as a playable NPC. But, after a while, Kite realizes that Subaru, Sora and Tsukasa are really just trash AI's, refuse left over from a previous server reset. The trash AIs are confused, having no memories from prior to when they just woke up, but they are available to be added to the party. Then, Kite and Elk hear reports of a cat-like creature wandering in the game. They visit the bottom of the deepest dungeon in The World and discover Maha. Maha turns into Mia, but she too has lost all of her memories. Elk is thunderstruck at discovering that Mia can't remember any of their time together in The World, but Kite helps out the both of them by instructing Elk to stay by Mia's side and "help her remember". Kite is now free to explore The World again, with the entire party available to choose from. However, outside of one remaining side quest (collect all 700+ items in the game) there is no longer anything else to do.



Reunion

Following the defeat of Morganna, Helba and Lios work to track down any remaining fragments of her AI. When they find something, they dispatch Orca, Balmung and Kite to delete the corrupted code. Eventually, it looks like The World is back to normal, and that nothing remains of Morganna. To celebrate, Helba invites everyone from both .Hack//Sign and the PS2 games to Net Slum for an evening of fireworks, music and dancing. Some of the characters meet for the first time, including Tsukasa and Mia. Tsukasa recognizes Macha immediately, but Mia's memory has been reset and she doesn't remember Tsukasa at all. Tsukasa tells us that "he" has found a place in the real world where she feels safe, allowing her to go anywhere she wants, with the knowledge that she has somewhere to retreat to if she needs it. From their conversations, it appears that many of the players have stopped playing, and haven't seen each other for a while. Tsukasa, Subaru and Mimiru have gotten together a couple of times in the real world, but not on a regular basis. Bear and BT remain close, and there is a possibility of a budding romance, if Bear can cut back on his writing schedule, and BT can loosen up some more. Aura also shows up for the festivities, but does nothing more than wave to Tsukasa and Subaru.

Shortly after waking up, Aura encounters a 9-year-old boy who is an absolute game fanatic. The boy invites Aura to join him in exploring The World. During this time, the boy confides to her that he wants to grow up to be a hero. Unfortunately, the boy's classmates tease him about being a fanboy, and he quits playing games altogether. About the same time, Aura starts spinning off clones of herself as her "daughters".

Here ends the story of Kite and Black Rose.

Originally Posted by Helbagate

Legend of the Twilight Bracelet (the manga version)

Four years pass. CC Corp. has blacklisted the accounts of Kite and Black Rose, preventing anyone else from using those character designs. Balmung has become Sys Admin for The World. After her brother, Kazu, recovered from his coma, Black Rose's family moved away from their old home. Kamui is the head of the Cobalt Knights debugging team, having assumed the post after her mentor and love interest Watarai left the company. Kamui received her Wotan Spear from Watarai.

A young girl, Rena, is an avid player of the game, and is familiar with its history. Thus, when CC Corp. decides to make the banned accounts of Kite and Black Rose available to the winner of a promotional contest, Rena is one of the first to enter it. She wins both accounts, and entices her twin brother, Shugo, into playing The World with her. Rena and Shugo's parents have separated, and she sees the opportunity to get Shugo into the game as a way of spending more time with him. (Also, Rena and Shugo grew up as neighbors to Kazu and the original Black Rose, before their family moved away.) At first, Shugo is reluctant, but the attention that he gets from pretty girls in the game makes him change his mind. He finds himself fighting a monster that is too difficult for the level that it is in, and his character gets killed. Aura takes this chance to rescue him, and to give him the Bracelet of Twilight. Shugo recovers, but is very slow in learning how the rules of the game, and the Bracelet, work.

Shugo and party explore The World, and slowly get stronger. Shugo meets up with one of Aura's "daughters", an impetuous AI named Zefie. They also run afoul of an overzealous debugger named Kamui. Kamui has been running around, deleting trash data, and has become interested in Shugo's Bracelet. Eventually, CC Corp. management loses patience with Balmung because he's taking a wait and see attitude regarding Shugo's bracelet and Zefie, and they put Kamui in charge of operations. CC Corp. management is afraid of another "Key of the Twilight" episode, and want Aura, Aura's attempts at cloning herself, and the Bracelet deleted immediately. Kamui has Balmung arrested and thrown into a prison in The World, and then does the same to Shugo's party. Shugo's friends have too much time invested in their characters to be willing to lose them and be banned from the game, so Shugo and Rena stand alone in being banished, and Zefie waits to be deleted.

Alone in their cell, Rena has a crisis of faith, but eventually decides that she really wants to keep playing in The World. When asked, Zefie shows that she has power over what happens in The World, and causes the cell door to unlock. The three escape and are joined by their friends, who also decide that The World is no fun to play in if they can't have Shugo by their sides. Balmung also escapes, with the help of his assistant. Kamui tries to defeat Shugo in a fair fight, and loses. Eventually, she realizes that she's lost track of why she was playing the game in the first place and sets out to recapture the sense of adventure that she used to feel. Over time, Zefie starts acting like a real human, and less like a spoiled brat. Finally, Balmung gives Shugo some virus cores, which the boy uses to gate hack to Aura's secret field area. In a flash, Shugo remembers when he first met Aura 4 years ago, and told her that he wanted to become a hero. We now learn that Aura had been the one that ran the Dot Hacker's contest, and gave the Kite and Black Rose accounts to Rena as a way to get Shugo back into The World so that he could realize his dream. Zefie is reunited with her mother, and Aura kisses Shugo as thanks for keeping her "daughter" safe. Zefie is now on her way to becoming an Ultimate AI.

[End of .Hack//Legend of the Twilight Bracelet manga. Note that there are two novels placed in the .Hack universe - Zero and AI Buster. Kamui should make her first appearance in vol. 2 of AI Buster, which will be out in Japan around the Summer of 2005.]

Legend of the Twilight Bracelet (the TV series version)

After episode 4, the .Hack//Legend of the Twilight TV series diverges from the manga that it was originally based on. In the TV series, a code fragment, named Morti, wants to understand what "death" really means. Morti teams up with 4 children who have all lost their parents in the real world to create Data Bugs that put players into comas again. The children are too young to understand what death means, and are using the game to release their pent-up frustrations with life. They've heard about the Kite character, and view the reincarnation of Kite as a threat to their plans. They attempt to Data Drain Shugo, but mess up and put Rena into a coma instead. Rena's consciousness finds itself in a sealed-off server in Japan, surrounded by the characters of other coma victims. Aura manages to enter the sealed server and wakes Rena up. Rena learns that the key to Data Drain is a planted subliminal suggestion stating that the player really is dead. The 4 hacker children chase Aura out of the server, leaving Rena trapped there. Eventually, there is a big showdown between Kamui's Cobalt Knights debugging group, Morti and the hacker children, resulting in almost everyone but Shugo, Kamui, Balmung and one of the hacker kids getting Data Drained by Morti. Morti is finally defeated, but not before she releases a virus that will destroy The World, and Data Drain everyone still logged into it. Shugo realizes that there's a reason why Aura brought back both the Kite and Black Rose characters, and both he and Rena jump into a vortex. In the epilog, we learn that Aura's anti-virus code from the Kite and Black Rose characters caused another server reset, saving The World from Morti's virus, and releasing all of the Data Drain victims from their comas.

[End of .Hack//Legend of the Twilight Bracelet TV series.]