"Between Two Words"

A .hack//SIGN story

by Rune Grey (starstrike@leamonde.net)

**Note - This story contains spoilers up to episode 21 of the series.**

"Did you find something out?" A touch of minor irritation tinged BT's
voice - and being called out here at this point, right on the heels of her
conversation with Sora and Ginkan. And even for all of the platitudes that
she had given the Silver Knight... she was not sure that the claims she had
given him that he had no cause for his own concerns were correct.

Subaru stood before the giant skeleton that adorned this portion of the
landscape, her back to the just arrived blonde Wave Master, apparently
looking out into space with an expression that was as distant as BT had ever
seen. Normally she would have assumed that she had stepped away from the
interface, but...

"What's wrong?" BT demanded, a bit more loudly and forcefully than before.

"Ah! I'm sorry... I was daydreaming." Surprise, regret, and a bit of
guilt... and while someone's real life appearance might not affect how they
appeared in The World, there was something about Subaru's eyes that gave BT
pause for a moment. A tightness there, a weight that had not been lifted for
quite a long time. It was something that was certainly enough to make her
pause and make comment of it.

"Hmph... if this was the real world, this is what I would say - 'Your color
isn't good'." Subaru jumped slightly at the comment, causing BT to narrow
her eyes a bit. Rather close to the mark... likely the girl had been up for
quite a while searching for the lost Tsukasa. "Could you still not meet
him?" BT added after a moment.

"Yes... What about you? Did you reach him, by any chance?" Concern, but...
muted, crushed down beneath the incredible weariness that echoed in Subaru's
voice at this point. BT suppressed a flash of anger - as if that green
haired waifs troubles were enough to shake the foundations of this entire
world. But everyone deferred to her on this, either out of concern for her
or Tsukasa. That thought was enough to add a bit of heat to her next
comment, not completely intended, but present none the less.

"Of course not."

"I understand..." Subaru glanced away after a moment, not wanting to meet
BT's rather intense gaze. Guilt perhaps, the Wave Master mused, still
steaming slightly from the moment before. Guilt about dragging them all
around like this, calling in favors to try and track down Tsukasa, as if
everyone else should drop what they were doing for this critical mission.
That was enough to fuel BT's anger a bit more, and even she was a bit
surprised by the heat she added to her rejoinder.

"Why do you take this so seriously? The World is a game. Only a game..." A
game that more and more often was being treated as if it were real life.
Hadn't Kurim said that this was just something that they used to distract
themselves from the pressures of reality?

Subaru bowed her head in response, considering BT's words for a long
moment... and then raised her head, a very faint smile on her face as she
returned her own answer to the question. "I was told the same thing before
by someone else. 'This is just a game.' That person also said, 'If this is a
game, then have fun. Have fun the way that you enjoy it most. I... would
like to meet Tsukasa. I want to meet him, and get to know him better.
Just... that... I will continue this game. Until I meet Tsukasa again. For
me, who I am now, that is the game 'The World'."

Exactly what Kurim had told her as well, BT seethed as Subaru spoke.
Something that had taken her months to even be able to get Kurim to tell
her - a touch of his view on The World and real life that she had so
treasured as something private and special the Long Arm user had given her.
And this... waif... had known this for how long...?

"I beg you, if you find something out, please contact me. No matter what it
is, I wouldn't mind." Subaru continued, her voice entreating as she begged
for some tidbit of information... some small bit of hope for her current
situation. And BT stiffened. Hope... something that she hadn't had for so
long. Stolen time and again, and most recently by Subaru herself.

A comment that forced her a bit beyond what she would have normally
considered to be prudent action, as she spoke in reply to the green haired
Heavy Axe user.

"Subaru..."

"Yes?"

"The real Tsukasa is..."

What was it that she could see at in that one moment - a pure, ringing
silence in which she knew that she had gained Subaru's complete and
undivided attention. And it had been so simple, hadn't it? All that it had
required was the use of two, simple words... 'Tsukasa is...'

And yet somehow, BT didn't know what to follow those words up with. The
possibilities where endless, of course... but the next most obvious response
that she knew she yearned to speak was the one bit of information that she
had gained only recently, and then only by chance. A topic that she knew
must be near to Subaru's heart - the truth about Tsukasa's identity in the
so called 'real world'.

And wouldn't that be the most sweet, blissful revenge - to watch as this
spoiled, sheltered child's face crumble as she realized that whatever bond,
whatever feelings of care and devotion that she had shared with the Wave
Master who had been trapped in The World were nothing more than a lie. A
fiction, a fabrication based off of the body that Tsukasa had been given as
a result of his being sealed within the game. That even if, somehow, the
Heavy Axe user could find a way to somehow log Tsukasa out of The World,
overcoming the forces which bound him here, there would be no happy 'real
life' reunion with him. No blissful reunion, no happy, fairy tale ending...

Because in truth, the 'real' Tsukasa was as different from the one who was
trapped here in the world as any woman was from a man...

And so BT posed herself to speak - to deliver that one, spiteful venomed
barb. This would be her retribution - not only against Subaru, but against
the entirety of a universe that had forever been dragging her hopes and
dreams through the mud - time and again, without pity, remorse, or mercy. A
universe that had always teased her with the promise of something better and
brighter - success, fortune, but most of all... the promise of love and
happiness. For so many years, after so many failures and heartaches, even
when she had fled from the cold, hard reality that had so often mocked her,
BT was still tormented by the same games of the heart that she had joined
The World in an attempt to avoid.

The words that Kurim has spoken to her still echoed as strongly within the
vaults of her memory as they had the moment that he had in turn spoken them
aloud. "I don't want you to get the wrong idea..." he had told her, his
voice tinged with a trace of regret as he had spoken in that ever so tactful
manner that set off mental alarms that BT had hoped to never hear again. "In
The World, I may be dating you, BT... but..."

But, indeed. There had always been that one word, that 'exception' that they
had all given here as to why their two lives were no longer capable of
continuing on the same path together. The implication that there was but
one, single insurmountable obstacle between them, and of course if not for
that obstruction, things would have worked out perfectly. This time, BT
knew, she would hear nothing of it. No sweet excuses, none of the same
pleasantries or banalities that she knew by heart at this point. Instead,
she simply lashed out at Kurim, her anger and pain giving her voice an icy
crack of scorn.

"But the true object of your affection..." she shot back, her eyes narrowing
dangerously, "...is Subaru."

It had always been that Heavy Axe user - no matter what BT did, what she
accomplished or what she offered to Kurim, she was always doomed to be
compared to that waif in his eyes. Subaru was respected, pampered, and
almost universally adored - once leader of the Scarlet Knights, a position
that she must have thrown away on a whim, something that she and Kurim had
helped build... What right did Subaru have to do this to her, BT seethed
inwardly. Logic was no answer at this point, washed away in a wave of anger
and rejection at the beginnings answer Kurim had given her. That Kurim and
Subaru had know each other for far longer than BT had been in The World was
of no importance to her for that one moment - only the fact that Subaru was
the obstacle. That one point around which Kurim had rejected her, in BT's
eyes.

Kurim had glanced away at the scathing accusation she had delivered to him,
the guilt in response to her accusation obvious on his face in her eyes. And
that was proper, considering how he had been leading her on like this for so
long...

...hadn't he?

That very thought was enough to make BT pause for a few moments, bringing to
her mind's eye again that expression that Kurim had given her in reply to
her accusation. Had it really been guilt there about the fact that he had
been leading her on? Or had it been different, something else entirely than
what in her anger she had seen at that point...

What was it that she saw there? Regret? Wistfulness? Sorrow? Something that
was not what she had expected - had forced herself to see... and that one
slight revelation forced her to stop, to hold back those spiteful words she
was more than prepared to toss at the young woman before her, and to
reassess the situation once more - conscience and morals rising to make BT
reexamine the situation one last time. Hadn't Kurim had more than enough of
an opportunity to initiate a relationship with Subaru, given how long they
had worked together... both within and outside of the Scarlet Knights? But
their reputation had always been as friends, trusted comrades, but nothing
more than that...

If Kurim did truly love Subaru to the point where he would pass BT up in the
Heavy Axe users favor, why hadn't he used those innumerable opportunities to
press his suit to her?

Why...?

At that moment, BT's reminiscence was interrupted as Subaru spoke, concern
obvious in the green haired young woman's voice as she urgently pressed for
more information to BT's last sally. "Is there something wrong with
Tsukasa?" she asked, the concern so great in her voice that it seemed as if
it were all that concerned her. The possibility that there was something
wrong with Tsukasa...

BT mentally closed her eyes, wondering what had come to possess her like
this. It was all a point of confusion... how much of this had she seen
because she wanted to, how much her own feelings of rejection and loss were
ruling what she was actually seeing? Was she really putting her own
feelings, and to an extent Ginkan's as well, feelings of envy and jealousy
against Tsukasa and Subaru, before what really should be there?

Could someone who was really that spoiled, pampered, and only concerned
about her own status and prestige muster that tone of concern and anxiety at
even the implication that something might be wrong with Tsukasa? Was this
really a woman who had numerous men wrapped around her fingers, and enjoyed
stringing them along... or was there something more?

It was that minor consideration, that possibility of something different...
something more to the girl in front of BT that brought her up short. And she
had to ask herself, even after all of this time, of being left alone to
spinsterhood... would she really want to wish that fate upon someone else?
To leave them to eternal loneliness, after they hopes and dreams had also
been crushed?

Part of her wanted to say yes - to rage against the universe that had left
her high and dry upon its beaches - but the other, better part of her...
refused.

"No... I hope... that you are able to meet him someday... the real Tsukasa."
For the moment... it was the best that she could say. A touch of hope in her
voice, carrying nothing of the anger she had felt only a moment ago - anger
that was even now draining away as if something had lanced it.

"Mmmm," the green haired Heavy Axe user replies, smiling gratefully at the
perceived compliment. A moment later, Subaru vanished - carried away by an
Orcania Spirt to the nearest Chaos Gate. BT signed inwardly - let Subaru
find out for herself... she couldn't bring herself to break the young
woman's heart by telling her the truth about Tsukasa at this point. Even the
possibility of hope was enough to keep someone going, and given how worn and
harried Subaru looked after these last few frantic days of searching... it
was quite possible that she might not really care.

Imagine that...

"So... The World at this moment to you is... eh..." BT shook her head
slightly, closing her eyes and sighing heavily. Was that the way that it was
between them, at this point? Her heart a bit heavier - at what she had
intended to do, rather than what she had actually done, the blonde wave
Master turned away from where Subaru had stood only a few moments before.
Turned, and walked away.

Alone... as always.





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