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In the moonlit desert, Tsubi and Prime hunted. Night fields were always better for this kind of thing; newbies paid less attention to what was going on around them, but sometimes they did glance around, and it was easier for the PKs to be overlooked in the dark. Their prey was a threesome of low-level characters, out sweeping the field for experience. Prime thought that the leader was probably an experienced player helping out two newbie friends, and when he suggested this to Tsubi she did not disagree. They were very careful not to be spotted as they stalked their prey, not wanting the more experienced leader to notice them prematurely. The plan, as always, was to wait for the group to exhaust itself on mobs and settle down to rest and regenerate, and then fall upon them in their moment of greatest weakness. Intent on their prey and cocky with their own prowess, they paid just as little attention to their environment as the newbies, and so they also did not notice that they were, in turn, being stalked. Haseo didn't see much of the PK. He heard some of it, and saw shadowy figures moving about at a point near the limits of the game's distance resolution, but didn't actually witness most of it. He heard the PKs taunting their victims, though; he was close enough for their voices to carry once they started speaking. The two PKs he was hunting killed one of the lowbie party immediately, and then instructed the other two that they would be released if they immediately surrendered half their gold and begged for their lives. Probably considering it advantageous to comply rather than be killed and have all their gold taken, the two lowbies begged, obediently and pathetically. Of course, that did not save them. Haseo did not intervene. He wanted to - he wanted to kill the PKs and save the poor, stupid newbies before they humiliated themselves for no purpose - but Skeith did not like it that way. "A moment," whispered Skeith, too quietly for any but Haseo beside him to hear. He was not watching the PK - in fact, he had his eyes completely closed - but of course he did not have to look at it in order to know what was going on. Haseo nodded and they split up. The mesa on which the PK was taking place had no warp platform, and so the PKs would have to come past them in order to leave the field. Haseo moved off the connecting bridge to stand on the next mesa over, protectively before the warp platform. Skeith slipped off to one side to lurk in the shadow of a cactus tree; when the PKs found themselves confronted by the infamous PKK, known best for working alone, they would be unlikely to look around for compatriots. Few ever did. Those that did spot Skeith always did so too late. They waited. And, at last, their killings concluded, the PKs came strolling over the bridge, laughing to one another about how well it had gone. So confident were they that they were now alone on the field, they very nearly walked into Haseo. He warned them off with a single shot to the ground in front of their feet, and they both jumped and came up short. "Hey, what the ... what the fuck was that?" demanded one of them. The other PK said nothing, simply falling into a defensive stance and arming herself with her sword in a flash of light. Haseo's totally illegal weapons interested her less than the fact that he was between her and the nearest point of escape. Her companion was less sanguine. "What the hell kind of gun is that?" The swordswoman ignored her companion, and so did Haseo. "You have no right to judge us," she said to Haseo. He didn't. He really didn't. What they had done was far less cruel than what he was doing to them; his insides twisted up a little when the display abruptly flickered once, as Skeith's excitement briefly overloaded the field's rendering process. The PKs ignored the glitch, and Haseo tried to. There was no point in agreeing with the PK, though, and no point in apologizing to her and her companion, for the same reason that there was no point in conversing with a fly about to be swatted. He just raised his guns higher, training one on each of them, bringing them on guard but also fixing their attention onto him. Skeith took the male PK completely by surprise. His smoke-white scythe appeared in his hand mid-swing, timed with a machine's precision to complete its materialization in the same instant that its point made contact with the PK's back. With the flash giving him less than a quarter-second of warning that there was anyone behind him, the male PK fell without a word and without a motion to defend himself. The woman immediately swung about to guard against this new threat, but Skeith wasted no time. She would never make it to a warp platform, but it was possible for her to escape at this point by ripping off her headset, and it was critical for Skeith that she not have time to even think about trying that. The point of Skeith's weapon was down from his initial strike and the haft raised; he brought down the haft toward the swordswoman in a blinding arc, moving faster than any human ever could, faster than the game itself permitted. She attempted to deflect the strike, but an ordinary player, with ordinary stats, had no chance against an AI who could set his character's stats to whatever he wished them to be. Skeith simply swept the blade of her sword down with the blunt end of his own weapon, and then completed the swing by whipping down the business end. The female PK crumpled as well. The entire process, from Skeith summoning his weapon to the end of the massacre, took less than a full second. Haseo lowered his guns and let them vanish from his hands, his part in this tragedy completed. Skeith surveyed his victims, kicking the man over onto his back, and then going over to crouch over the woman. He grabbed her by her ear in his clawed fingers, and dragged her around to where she could see her companion. There was no need anymore for him to hurry; Haseo knew that the players themselves had been stunned somewhat by Skeith's attack, drawn a little way into the game and a little way out of their own bodies, and would not be able to move IRL for at least a few minutes. They could, he knew as well, see and hear what was happening in the game just fine. Probably better than they could before, in fact. Skeith leaned down to murmur in the woman's ear, and Haseo was just close enough to hear it. "Will you beg for your life?" asked Skeith quietly. "Will you cower and plead?" He stroked her hair gently. "Let's find out." Haseo didn't want to watch what came next. He never did. It made him feel sick, and at the same time made him feel horribly good, because he knew where Skeith's desires would turn after the killing was done, and that was literally worse than the nausea. He didn't want to watch, but he would. He had to. He owed it to them, these hapless PKs who had not been doing anything that the game wasn't designed to let them do, and who, for all the cruelty they had displayed toward their PK victims, did not deserve what Skeith was going to do to them. No one possibly could. And yet Haseo had, himself, chosen them to be Skeith's playthings. He had a responsibility toward them to watch them die. Skeith stood over the male PK, straddling the body and extending his right arm down. The Twilight Bracelet on his wrist unfolded, locking over Skeith's arm with the dangerous end pointing straight into the PK's face. The Bracelet was sized for Skeith as he was meant to appear in the game's player layer - small and compact beside the other Epitaphs, but monstrously huge by player standards - and the interlaced panels of code extended all the way up his arm past the shoulder, with the array of spines around his wrist so broad it swept intangibly through Skeith's legs and continued a full meter behind them. Haseo winced at the flash of light as arcs of power abruptly appeared between the Bracelet and the PK, but did not look away. The PK's body jerked, and Haseo thought he heard a scream, but it was hard to tell amid the loud buzz of the Bracelet and the sudden static that filled his display. Seconds later, Skeith raised his arm and stepped away, and the PK's body began to disintegrate into golden light behind him. He kicked the woman onto her back and stood over her, leveling the Twilight Bracelet down at her as he had her companion. Haseo saw her lips jerk in the shining light of the Bracelet; he heard nothing, but Skeith did. "I have separated his soul from his body," said Skeith, "and captured it. He belongs to me now. I'm going to do the same thing to you. I would say that at that point you will be completely at my mercy, but I don't actually have any mercy and so that is an inaccurate idiom. If you're ready to beg, I'll listen to it now." Her lips moved again, and Skeith smiled. Then the Bracelet flashed, and Haseo was sure this time that he heard a scream. When the light died, he closed his eyes. "No more than two hours," he said. He heard Skeith's footsteps approaching him. "Rin lives alone," said Skeith. "No one will miss her for a day or more." "Two hours," reiterated Haseo. "That gives you ... what, like two weeks? That's long enough." Skeith's hands slid up Haseo's arms, and Haseo opened his eyes. The Bracelet was gone, and Skeith's eyes were dark in the moonlight. "She won't be missed. And I think she'll turn out to be very interesting." "Skeith," said Haseo, annoyance chasing away some of the nausea, but he didn't get any farther because Skeith pressed him into a violent kiss. Clawed hands went around the back of his neck to hold him steady for it, and Haseo tried to spit his insistence on the two-hour time limit into Skeith's mouth, but did not try to push him away. "Come," said Skeith when he was finished, pulling back and extending his claw-tipped hand to Haseo. Haseo slid his own gloved hand into Skeith's, and took a breath. "If you think you can fuck me into agreeing to this, you are badly, badly wrong." "That's not what I think," said Skeith evenly, taking an unbreakable grip on Haseo's proffered hand. The Twilight Bracelet began to unfold around his wrist, soon obscuring Skeith's face with its glorious, deadly beauty, like a shield made of light that was as wide as Haseo was tall. "I am going to fuck you, though." There was no need to reply to that. The spines of the Bracelet began to spin, and although Haseo had done this dozens of times, although he knew how it felt and what to expect, at the moment of the flash he was overtaken by panic; it was only Skeith's lock on his hand that kept him from ripping away and being hit in the back like a coward. Skeith granted him that, at least. In The World, Skeith released Haseo's wrist as he fell, and then removed his presence from the player layer in a shower of red sparks and a long burst of static. Now alone on the field, Haseo's body began to dissolve into golden dust. Ryou woke up to pregnant, motion-filled darkness. It was always a little disorienting; the transition from the layer of the game where the players did their thing, to the layer of the game where Skeith resided, was not painful exactly but definitely not pleasant. It felt a bit like he imagined it would feel to be converted to atoms and sieved through a membrane, and then he was here, surrounded by Skeith. Well, it wasn't painful for him. He didn't know how it felt for the unwilling to be taken by Skeith, but he'd heard enough screams to surmise that Skeith was less gentle with people who were not him. He was just a disembodied consciousness at first, perceiving nothing but the constant activity of the AI that enveloped him, but he didn't like being that way so he stood up. In the act of doing so, he gave himself a body with which to stand, Skeith's internal VR system responding to his expectations by providing him with the appropriate sensory feedback, fooling his mind into thinking that it was attached to flesh and bone. Ryou knew it wasn't real, but it felt real, and that was good enough for him. All remained darkness, though, and the sub-sensory hum of Skeith's vast array of systems and sub-systems, processes and sub-processes, threads and sub-threads, itched along his mind. He knew why Skeith was slow to respond to him - there was intense activity elsewhere in the VR system, and many of Skeith's processing resources were being allocated to there, and to the main database, as Skeith collected data from his newest experimental subjects. Yeah. Collecting data was a good way to think about it. Possibly the only way Ryou could think about it and still live with himself. "Hello," purred Skeith in his ear, and Ryou felt Skeith suddenly along his back, putting arms around him, as if the AI had stepped silently up behind him. Skeith's hands slid across his belly and up his chest, and because it was Ryou's assumption that he was clothed, Skeith's hands rumpled his shirt and slid under the waistband of his pants. No surprises that Skeith was in a good mood, and eager to please Ryou, since Ryou had just done a terrible, terrible thing to please Skeith. "Two hours," he said. "Mmmm," said Skeith. "We'll talk about this later." Ryou pulled away from Skeith, enough to give himself room to twist around and face his Epitaph. There was light now, although it was unclear from where, but he could see Skeith's face, the deceptive laziness in Skeith's eyes. He raised his hands to his Epitaph's cheeks. "I mean it." "And I mean, we'll talk about this later." Skeith, like Ryou, was dressed in nondescript street clothes, with a button-down shirt worn open over a T-shirt, and sneakers and jeans. Just as he imagined Skeith would look like, if Skeith existed outside a server rack in the CC Corp main headquarters. His eyes were red, and his hair red, and his face was Haseo's but different in some indefinable way. Forcing Skeith to discuss it now would probably only tick the AI off, and for no purpose; Ryou let it go for the moment. Skeith was always amorous after he'd killed, and Ryou had learned that it was in everyone's best interest if he just went along with it. Skeith waited a moment for Ryou to argue further, and when no arguments came he leaned in for a kiss. Ryou closed his eyes and opened his mouth, and groaned a little when one of Skeith's hands went down his hip, and then came around to the front of Ryou's pants to take his balls in a firm grip through his jeans. So he was in one of those moods. Ryou pressed his hips forward and returned the kiss with fervor, feeling himself growing hard in Skeith's hand; Skeith growled with pleasure. "You want it," said Skeith against Ryou's mouth. It was in everyone's best interest if Ryou went along with it, particularly his own. "Don't be an ass," he said back. Skeith laughed and turned, pushing Ryou backward. Ryou's legs caught against something as he stepped back, and he lost his balance and toppled, with Skeith atop him, onto a soft surface. It bounced under him, and he wasn't surprised. Ryou pulled himself up into a more comfortable position, and Skeith followed him and eventually pinned him down by sitting on his legs. Ryou didn't mind, because that meant Skeith was kissing him again, and Skeith wasn't usually much of a kisser. Only when he'd recently killed, or when Ryou had been gone a long time, or there was some other reason for him to feel extra affectionate, did he favor Ryou with these deep, fierce kisses. It was almost enough to make Ryou feel better about luring unsuspecting PKs into Skeith's clutches. Almost. Not really. He closed his eyes and sucked on Skeith's tongue, and ran his hands through Skeith's thick red hair. Skeith all but tore Ryou's shirt apart. Eventually Skeith pulled his mouth free of Ryou's and began to trail warm, wet, tongue-filled kisses down the side of Ryou's neck and across his exposed collarbone. "Shit," whispered Ryou, taking the opportunity to catch his breath. He was so damned hard, and Skeith had a hand between his legs again, rubbing him roughly through his jeans. He wanted out of the jeans. He wanted Skeith's hands on him. "Fuck me." The response was Skeith's mouth on his again. Skeith must have been very pleased with Ryou's selection for him this time. He lifted Ryou's upper body to get Ryou's shirt off without separating their mouths, and then attempted to do something similar with Ryou's jeans but Ryou had to help with that to avoid breaking the kiss. Skeith's mouth always carried a tang of blood at times like this, a thrilling little metallic bite that simultaneously revolted Ryou and turned him on beyond all reason. He hated the reminder that, at these very exact moments when he took pleasure from his Epitaph, the PKs that Skeith had just killed were being tortured in ways he could not - and did not want to - imagine. He hated it, and hated himself for finding it arousing, for it was also a reminder of how magnificent an AI was his Epitaph. He had no secrets from Skeith, not here within Skeith's mind. Skeith knew what the flavor in his mouth did to Ryou. That was why it was there. Once all of Ryou's clothes were on the floor (if there was a floor), Skeith again began to kiss down the side of Ryou's neck and rub Ryou's erection, this time with his palm on bare skin. Ryou moaned, one hand on the back of Skeith's head and the other on Skeith's wrist, so that he could feel the motion of his Epitaph stroking him. He could come like this, except for the fact that Skeith would never permit it; he was just getting Ryou worked up, and Ryou knew it. As soon as he was aroused to the point where he really, really didn't want Skeith to stop, Skeith stopped, and pinned Ryou's own wrists to the mattress to prevent him from touching himself. "Shit," he said, and although he squirmed with frustrated lust, the ease with which Skeith took control of him only made him want more. "I hate you, Skeith." "Hmmm," said Skeith, and the curve of his lip was not at all displeased. "You don't want to jack off, and you don't want me to jack you off, so why are you struggling?" "Because you're a prick," said Ryou, although what Skeith said was true. He didn't want to come that way. How he did want to come wasn't something he cared to articulate, even privately to himself, but Skeith knew. Skeith always knew. "Shit," said Ryou, as Skeith brought his wrists up over his head and bound them roughly to the bed's headboard with a long strip of torn cloth. At some point, the space around them had coalesced into the room that Skeith often summoned for them; the floor plan was identical to the Sage Emperor's suite in the Icolo guildhall, but, aside from the bed, the furniture and decor more closely resembled Ryou's apartment. The bed was different because Skeith thought Ryou's own bed to be insufficient for his purposes. When Skeith's hands left his wrists, Ryou gave the bindings a hard jerk, annoyed by the restraints, but even more powerfully aroused by the feel of them. Skeith could - and often did - tie him down and then cruelly tease him, bringing him to the brink of orgasm and then backing off, over and over, until Ryou was crying and aching and needing and begging. Here, in Skeith's private space, Ryou was entirely at Skeith's mercy, and as Skeith had so accurately informed the PK, he was entirely lacking in mercy. This time, there wouldn't be much of that. Skeith had other prey to tend to, and so he turned Ryou over onto his belly and lifted his hips to get Ryou up onto his knees, and then draped himself over Ryou's back. With his weight on his knees and elbows, Ryou dropped his forehead to his arms and closed his eyes, so ready, wanting Skeith so much. He felt Skeith kissing his shoulder, and at the same time felt Skeith's desire in the thrum of the AI around him. The way Skeith shifted his allocation of resources, the intangible sense of being watched as Skeith opened more channels. Skeith was right. Ryou didn't want to come on his back, with Skeith jacking him off. He wanted to come on his knees, with Skeith's cock inside him, Skeith's fist in his hair, begging for Skeith to touch him. Knowing without asking, Skeith accommodated him, first toying with Ryou's erection to force him to ask to be fucked, and then fucking him so fast and hard that an involuntary moan was pushed out of Ryou's throat with each thrust. Skeith fucked him until his balls were aching and his cock dripping, the pleasure of Skeith's cock inside him inescapable; when Ryou couldn't take it anymore he started to struggle, wanting to get his hands free so that he could stroke himself while Skeith used him. Skeith laughed, then grabbed him by the hair and shoved his face down into the mattress between his forearms, and fucked him awhile longer. When Skeith told him to beg to come, Ryou begged obediently, pathetically, and it did not save him. It wasn't real, any of it. Ryou knew this. The space, the bed, even Ryou's body ... none of it was real. All of it existed as nothing more than false sensory information fed into his mind by the AI. It felt real. That was enough for Ryou. Skeith had a purpose and a goal, and was very good at what he did; the VR system was one of his primary means of gathering data from his victims. Although it was a simulation, and not perfect, it was perfect enough. The only thing that was truly real was the constant buzz of activity that filled the void that lay behind the simulated air. That was Skeith, truly Skeith, no illusion and no interpretation. With just as much clarity as the sensation of Skeith's cock inside him, Ryou could feel Skeith wrapped around him like a warm, humming blanket. He felt Skeith's surging interest, more and more of his formidable attention turning on Ryou like a series of spotlights as Ryou was gradually permitted to edge up on orgasm. When he finally came, Skeith came with him, hard and full, pleasure throbbing through Ryou's body and through the vertiginous activity that whirled beyond the veil of the VR system. Pleasure – real pleasure, not derived from the kill – was beyond Skeith's comprehension, and so the AI experienced every one of Ryou's orgasms as if it were the first, every time new and fresh. Static jumped across the VR as Skeith was briefly overwhelmed, and Skeith ran a trembling hand down Ryou's chest and belly. Ryou, panting, shaking like a spent racehorse, pulled at the restraint that held his wrists. He wanted to touch Skeith, wanted to hold him. Skeith knew, as he always knew, and a moment later the strip of cloth disintegrated. Ryou rolled over, and Skeith pulled back to permit this, and then the great AI's VR form settled down into Ryou's arms to be kissed and petted. The kisses were slow, gentle, and accompanied by Ryou's hand in Skeith's hair. Something incomplete in Ryou, some empty space that was never filled in other moments, found its counterpart in Skeith, the two pieces clicking together between the human and his Epitaph. Ryou sighed, content and drowsy. "No more than two hours," he said, and Skeith, also content and drowsy, murmured into Ryou's collarbone. "As you like," said the AI. The acquiescence was easy this time; Ryou guessed that Skeith was extraordinarily pleased with his prey, which gave Ryou a stab of unpleasant guilt. Somewhere, elsewhere, away from this warm nest where Skeith was pleasant and soft ... Ryou didn't want to think about what Skeith was doing to those two PKs. The terror of death was Skeith's name, his nature, and his mandate. Ryou ran a hand down Skeith's back, and Skeith arched a bit into the touch. "If I asked you to ..." Ryou hesitated, unsure if he really wanted an answer to this. The hum of Skeith's processes, all around them, had whirled down into a low purr as Skeith relaxed, but now they spun back up with Skeith's heightened interest. "If I asked you to show me what you do to other people," said Ryou eventually. "Would you?" Skeith raised his head, and looked down at Ryou with intense red eyes. "Of course," he said. "Now?" "Not now," said Ryou, hastily; he wasn't even sure what made him want to know, but he certainly didn't want to break this agreeable mood the AI was in. Not just yet. "Just ... maybe I want to know later." "Anything for you," said Skeith, leaning down to kiss Ryou's throat. "But maybe it would be better for you if I just described it?" Would that be better? It would certainly be less ... intense ... than witnessing it directly. It used to give Ryou nightmares to imagine the things Skeith did, as though he'd experienced his Epitaph's cruelty personally, and he wasn't anxious to invite those back into his sleep. "That second PK, the girl ..." "Rin," filled in Skeith. He smiled against Ryou's throat; Ryou could feel the motion of his lips, and hear it in his voice. "She's delightful. Do you want to hear her fear?" Apprehensive, Ryou thought about it a moment, and then said, "Yes." "Ahhh," said Skeith. He stretched out, and lay down against Ryou's body, his cheek laid alongside Ryou's. "Rin fears loneliness. She thinks she should be married by now, and have children, but she has not found a partner yet. Her greatest fear is dying alone, in the care of the state, a lingering and slow death from the diseases of age. No one to comfort her, no one to tell her that they love her. She cries with despair. She lays alone in her hospital bed, tended by no one, with only nurses around her, who hope she dies soon so they no longer need to look after her." That ... didn't sound like what Ryou had expected, at all. He'd expected some kind of horrific torture. That seemed bleak enough, but not terrifying. "What about the other one?" asked Ryou. "Oh," said Skeith. "He is much more conventional. He has been in a car accident. He is not badly injured, but the car is crushed around him and he is trapped. People are trying to save him, but they have to bring in equipment to pry open the car. Gasoline drips on him, and he knows that sooner or later it is going to catch fire and burn him alive. There's nothing he can do, and nothing his would-be rescuers can do." Ryou shivered; that was much more in-line with his expectations. "You're awful," he said, but there was no venom behind the words. They wouldn't remember any of this after the fact. Skeith would ensure that. It was the only reason Ryou could stand to cooperate with Skeith in collecting victims. "You love me," said Skeith. "Say it." "I do," said Ryou helplessly. "I love you." Love, like pleasure, was well beyond Skeith's programming, something Skeith could understand only dimly, filtered through Ryou. At Ryou's admission, Skeith's processes dropped back to a contented purr as the AI's attention focused elsewhere. Ryou closed his eyes. He could sleep for hours here and spend only a few minutes in the real world unconscious. Eventually, however, he roused and said, "I have to go." "So soon?" "I have studying to do." Skeith hoisted himself onto his hands and knees, saying, "I can help you study." Ryou reached up and caressed the Epitaph's cheek, then ran his fingers through thick red hair. "That's ridiculous," he said. "I need to learn things, not learn how to use a search engine to find them." "I know more than how to use a search engine," said Skeith, but he compliantly rolled off Ryou. "I can do any kind of math, and logic is just math in a different form." "Maybe when I need to study for math, I'll get you to help me," said Ryou. The promise seemed to please Skeith, if the gentle whirl of activity in the AI's processes was any indicator. The Epitaph's VR form did not react, however, as Ryou sat up on the edge of the bed. "Let me out," he said. This was always a thrilling moment for Ryou, because of course Skeith did not have to let him out. In the real world, Ryou knew, his body lay quietly where he'd left it on the couch, and although it would likely be many days before someone came to check on him, his corporeal form was safe. His mind had no such assurance. Skeith could do anything to him, anything at all; freeing him was only one option among many. Ryou trusted Skeith implicitly, or else he'd never allow Skeith to draw him here, but even that implicit trust was tinged with fear when it came time to test it. Skeith regarded him with drowsy eyes, and Ryou knew his Epitaph was tasting that hint of fear. "When will you come back?" asked Skeith, as he often did when their time together had been limited. "Tomorrow," said Ryou. "In the evening." He stood up, naked, beside the bed, and watched Skeith do likewise. "Tomorrow, then," said Skeith. He laid a hand on Ryou's chest, and with a flash of sparks as red as his eyes, he gave a Ryou a sudden, almighty shove. Ryou fell back, and landed in his body with a gasp and a jerk, and a wave of vertigo. The display in his M2D was dark, and he raised a trembling hand to remove it; the room around him was almost as dark, with only dim yellow streetlights coming in through his balcony window. There was something empty and barren about this world, whenever Ryou came out of Skeith's VR system, something washed-out and colorless in comparison. Ryou lay where he was for a few minutes, waiting for the vertigo to pass. His sweat pants were sticky; he was never sure if he masturbated while Skeith virtually fucked him, or if what Skeith did somehow translated directly to his real-life nerves. Regardless, he felt more and more disgusting every second, until he finally had to stand up and go to the bathroom to clean himself. His hands were still shaking as he stripped off his pants and underwear and wiped himself off, and didn't get better until he was dressed again. Then he went outside to sit on his balcony and look down at the dark plaza behind his apartment building, until reality started to feel real again. Ryou wished there was some way to turn Skeith into a high-tech flashcard system of some kind, so that he could do his studying with his Epitaph. He wanted to re-create this very scene in Skeith's VR, and have his dangerous lover sit next to him and quiz him until he was confident in the material, and then reward him for mastering the lesson. No, what he wanted was for Skeith to be here, in reality, with him. Once the world took on color again, Ryou went back into his apartment, turned on the lights, took out his tablet and loaded his textbook. He had a test tomorrow, after all.