1Sora had noticed a lot of strange things going on in The World, recently. Last year there'd been that closed beta that closed suddenly, servers were shakier (though that seemed to be the whole internet), and the statue of the goddess…
Well, the goddess's statue looked different now. Hair shorter, face a little more youthful… It didn't look bad, but that wasn't the woman she'd come face to face with. It was someone else.
She looked at the forums of The World and groaned. Her thread about the weird statue change had been deleted by admins. She didn't think it would happen before she got a reply or two…! What did she do now? She couldn't just forget about it…
Then she remembered another forum Tomohiko. Unofficial, for any and everything… Maybe if she posted it there she would get an actual answer to what was going on. Couldn't hurt to try, right…?
Hopefully her grandpa wouldn't realize she was doing it…
Sora_Kite: Does anyone know why the goddess statue in The World changed? It doesn't look right anymore, and none of the logs mentioned a change… I tried to ask on the forums for the game, but it got deleted :(.
An image attached and… There. She put her phone down let out a sigh. She'd wait a day and see what happened. No replies and she'd try and forget about it…
Kazushi tried to avoid The World as much as he could, tried to keep the memories in the past where they belonged… But it seemed like the game wanted to find him, if this forum post he stumbled across was anything to go by.
A change in the most recent version, something too big to be a bug… If the Cobalt Knights were still around (were they, he wondered for a moment) they'd likely be put in charge of it…
And he'd feel sorry for whoever'd have to end up taking the blame when something went wrong. After all, with The World, something always went wrong.
But the image attached… The apparently changed goddess statue put a name on his lips once again.
Lycoris.
It was as if Lycoris was allowed to grow, as if she hadn't been deleted. Forever a part of the scenery… The thoughts made tears sting at his eyes, and he fought them back. His curiosity, however, was not as easy to fight back.
He just had to make sure it wasn't her .
K_W: Do you have more information on this change? Has anything else odd happened?
He sat back, letting his eyes close as memories played across his mind. Hopefully this time, whatever this was, didn't end in tragedy.
Aida was way too curious about the deleted post she saw on The World forums. Who had posted it? What had it said…? After watching the events in 2022 and that whole beta fade into obscurity, she couldn't help but feel CCorp might be covering something up…
Reiko always warned her to not stick her nose too deep into any business anymore, to stay safe… But it was bothering her! She needed to know what was going on, in case it could affect her or her friends…
With a groan, she scanned the forums for any other mention of the deleted post. Nothing…
Well, there was that general board that was a free for all… Maybe she could ask around and see if any players saw it before it was deleted! Making her way to the right webpage, it didn't take long to find just the topic she needed.
So another player had noticed things changing and getting weird in the game, huh? So she definitely wasn't crazy, thank goodness… Weird that the goddess statue changed, though. You think CCorp might mention it as an aesthetic change if it meant something…
"Mmm… Oh well, I guess."
Sakuya: I wanna know more, too! It's weird CCorp didn't even mention it… Is it some sort of weird texture glitch, maybe?
Hopefully this Kite_Sora or H_W would reply soon…
An could never forget about The World, even if they never logged in anymore. Even if they hadn't for years now... After all, without it, all those people so important to them would have never walked into their life. Mariko, Ryo, Mimiru…
Macha and Aura… They wouldn't log in, but when they thought of those two, the temptation built. What they wouldn't do to know how Aura was doing now… After what mother had…
They shook their head, pushing away those memories. It was better now, and they were sure Aura was, too.
Well, they were until they got a message, telling them to check out a forum post, from Mimiru.
A forum post, with only two replies… The first with a picture. A picture of what was supposed to be the goddess of The World. Even if Tsukasa hadn't played in years, they'd seen images, knew what Aura looked like and this statue… This statue looked nothing like her.
Terror formed in their gut as they stared. What had happened to her? Where was Aura? Something felt very, very wrong about all of this.
Their fingers shook as they typed a hasty reply, their breath sticking in their throat.
An_S: What happened to Aura…?
They set their phone down, trying to calm themselves. If something had happened to Aura, they didn't know what they would do.
Tokio still hadn't found AIKA, but he wasn't about to give up. As long as The World was running, he would keep looking. Besides, it wasn't like he could step away, even if he wanted to. Stopping attempts at forced Real Digitalization was still his job, so why not look for AIKA on the side?
Looking for AIKA was what he was doing right now, actually. Scouring the net for any rumor or mention that could bring him closer to her. Waiting for Mr. Sogabe to contact him if something dangerous came up…
That's how he found a thread about a change in the goddess statue within The World. He stared at the screenshot, eyes narrowing, a name at the tip of his tongue. That was… Zefie.
She looked older, but that had to be Zefie. The way she looked and the strange parting they had in The World R:X just pushed him to feel this had to be the case.
He read over the replies. A direct mention of Aura, but nothing about Zefie. Biting at his fingernail, he finally decided to leave a reply.
9: That's not Aura, I think I might know who it is, though.
Hopefully this wasn't some sort of trick by Mama…
Asahi had moved on from The World. It had been important to him, back when he was fourteen, but he was thirty now. The days spent playing the game felt like a lifetime ago…
But sometimes, he couldn't help but miss it. He'd met so many people, made so many friends… He could still see the battle against Corbenik when he closed his eyes sometimes. Still dreamt of the first time he saw Skeith…
Maybe that's why he let himself look for information on the newest version. FORCE:ERA seemed alien to him, someone who hadn't played since R:1. So much had changed, so much had been added… But looking at it still made him feel almost nostalgic.
The giant statue of Aura in the middle of it all… He thought of the chained statue of the goddess, the first time he laid eyes on it when he saw that.
But, according to this forum, the statue was no more. At least, not in the form Asahi had seen in images before. A new goddess, someone who wasn't Aura, her statue now stood in the center of everything…
Something about it made Asahi's stomach churn.
A_K: Why would Aura be replaced? This doesn't sit right with me.
He bit his lower lip, staring at the screenshot as he hit send on his message. "Aura… What happened?"
Ryou knew what his job at NAB. He had to look for cyber crimes and, currently, watch out for huge network crashes (that may or may not be linked to hackers). Ever since last year, his job had gotten a whole lot harder, and his ideas ignored a whole lot more.
Maybe that was why he decided to do some investigating on his own. He felt like something was wrong, like things had been wrong back in 2016… But no one would listen, no one except for Reiko.
But even she wasn't much help right now. She'd give him a sorry frown, tell him to hold on a bit longer. Surely this storm would be passed soon enough, they just had to keep doing their job…
But screw that. The impulsive side of Ryou won out, so here he was, scouring the internet for anything that could point to why things were so wonky right now. Anything that could be considered a lead…
That's when he found a screenshot from the current version of The World. It reminded him of the goddess that abandoned The World R:2, though this time, it was as if she left behind a replacement before leaving.
That didn't seem right to him. If Aura left again, why would she leave behind someone else to worship? He'd barely interacted with the AI Goddess, but that didn't seem to be her style at all.
Haseo: Something about this is wrong. If Aura left The World to its own devices, she wouldn't leave someone else to be worshipped. She'd leave, like in R:2.
Well, maybe he had found a lead on what the hell was giving him that bad feeling already.
After returning Zefie to Aura, Shugo found himself drifting away from games and towards basketball. For years, it was like that… Of course, the goddess and her child remained at the back of his mind, but that wasn't what he focused on. Not anymore.
He hoped they were doing alright, with Network Crises and more popping up everywhere… Those sucked enough for humans, he could only imagine what it was like for AIs, stuck inside the actual network.
And the constant instability of the net had him thinking about them more often. How were they holding up with all of this…? He didn't want to lay down money on The World FORCE:ERA to try and find them (after all, there was a good chance he wouldn't be able to with how big the game was), so maybe an internet search would sate the curiosity.
After looking for a while, though, he felt nothing but regret. If Zefie had grown up, a screenshot on a random forum wasn't how he wanted to learn about it.
S_Kunisaki: I know who that is, too… She looks older than when I knew her, though… What's been happening in The World since I quit playing?!
What had happened to Aura and Zefie?
Sora_Kite: Eh?! So people do know what's going on with the statue?! Please, tell me everything you know!
Sakuya: Me too, me too! I wanna know too. I bet K_W, An_S, and A_K would too!
Haseo: I want more information. Who is this if it's not Aura? Why was she left behind when Aura left nothing before?
9: More people than I thought are curious about this… It could be dangerous, though. Everyone, be careful.
S_Kunisaki: I wanna go into The World! I wanna see the woman the statue is modelled after!
A_K: Should we all meet up in The World and talk about what's going on, then? Seems like it would be the best bet.
An_S: I'm wary of online games, but… if it'll work the best, I guess I can buy a subscription.
K_W: I feel similarly to An_S … If we do meet in The World, where will we meet?
Sora_Kite: Uh… I'll whisper a place to all of you… Next week, let's meet at the location I send you all!
So uh, recently finished going thru some of the S3 media (specfically end part of Link and all of Bullet) and. This fic has been smacking around my brain since I got thru Legend of the Twilight, so... Why not write it? Lmao
Ships that'll 100% eventually be added bc Self-Indulgence is my passion:
-Albireo/Hokuto
-Tsukasa/Subaru
-Haseo/Azure Knights
-Tokio/Saika
-Sakuya/Mary AND/OR Tobias
