The Red Hand

"So you're really going to live here with Akagi?" Naomi asked. Akagi and the girls were currently sitting at a table in the garden enjoying the snacks and tea Yumi brought. Kana was unsure just how much to tell Mika and Naomi about what had transpired at the Tomogawa house, but Akagi encouraged her to open up to her friends. The two of them were aware of the poor relationship Akagi had with her parents, but Kana had always been evasive as to any specifics. Deciding that now was as good of a time as ever, and with Akagi's permission, she explained the full story to them. As one can expect, they weren't happy.

"I can't believe they would do something so horrible!" Mika exclaimed. "How could they treat their own daughter like a nuisance!" Mika grew up in a loving household, so hearing Kana's story really upset her. "You always told us your sister and parents didn't get along, but I never could have imagined it was this bad!" She looked at Akagi with a sad face.

“My parents could be strict, but to cast her aside like that....” Naomi was shocked to hear just had transpired.

{To hear your own parents say you weren't even their child and to call you a monster.... I don't even want to imagine such a thing.} (Naomi)

"For the time being, I think I should limit contact with my parents." Kana's face looked conflicted. "I don't think I could ever bring myself to hate them, but knowing what they put Onee-chan through makes me so angry." It would likely take some time for Kana to sort through all her feelings. Her parents had been blowing up her messages since she left, but she placed them on mute. When she was ready she would speak to them again; on her terms.

"As far as I'm concerned, it's all in the past Mika," Akagi said while drinking her coffee. "I can't change it, but I think I'm starting to move past it, at least a little bit." She gave a warm smile as she looked at Yumi. "What those two think of me doesn't matter. I only need to care about those who are important to me."

{Just what is the relationship between those two? They're are always together, and I get this strange vibe from them. Being together in the game would have given them plenty of time to sort things out between them too.} Kana was still confused about Yumi's relationship with her sister. She knew her sister swung in that direction, but she never really talked about such things with her before. While she could ask her directly, she didn't want to be insensitive.

"So what happens now?" Naomi interjected. "I hope this means you won't be leaving school." Akagi's home was quite far away from Kyoto Highschool after all and Mika and Naomi didn't want to lose their friend.

"Uh...." Kana stammered. "I honestly haven't given anything much thought, to be honest." Kana's quick exit from her parent's house was done with zero planning.

"Leaving school won't be necessary." Akagi chimed in. "I have subordinates that can teleport, so they can just drop you off. As for anything else, we can cross those bridges when we get to them, don't worry." Akagi was pretty nonchalant about the whole thing.

"I guess that's true, but I don't want to trouble anyone with my problems." Kana wasn't one to depend on others in such a way; she was pretty independent.

"You're my sister; you can rely on me in times like this."Akagi reminded her. "Plus, just teleporting you to and back from school will be no inconvenience." She shook her head. "They do way harder things than that every day." Akagi cracked a smile.

Eventually, with some prodding, Kana relented when Akagi pointed out that she was essentially responsible for her at this point. By moving in with her and distancing herself from her parents Akagi was her de-facto guardian. While Kana might be quite mature and intelligent for her age, she was still just a sixteen-year-old girl in high school. If she was going to live with Akagi, she would have to endure being taken care of by her; that was the rule.

{Why do I have a feeling that Akagi just wants to spoil her sister?} Naomi chuckled in her mind.

The girls chatted a while longer, there was much to cover, until the sun began to hang low in the sky.

"It's already 7 o'clock?" Naomi was surprised. "Today really was a full one, wasn't it? And it went by so fast."

"Isn't Hishya's interview going to start soon? I think it's at eight if I remember correctly?" Kana was interested in watching.

"Yeah, she'll be interviewing with a reporter named Kirika." Akagi checked her memory. "Should be on at eight. What do you say we watch? It might be interesting," she asked.

The girls all agreed, they were quite interested in hearing more about Hishya and her time in FWO. The only information they had gotten was from Akagi or rumors on the net. So seeing the Hero of FWO give an interview would be quite interesting. With the allotted time fast approaching, Akagi advised the girls to get cleaned up and comfortable. The estate contained a large bathroom with a tub that resembled a hot spring, much to their delight.

While the three girls washed up and got comfortable, Akagi decided to message Hishya to ask her if the interview was still on. To which she received a reply consisting of swearing emojis. Apparently, Akagi was going to be a topic during the interview, which made her even more interested in watching.

Once the girls bathed and got in comfy clothes, they followed Akagi and Yumi outside. They were going to watch the interview in one of the pavilions on the pond using Kana's little projector. Yumi, as always, brought drinks and Akagi sat comfortably with her bottle of Ayakashi sake. A little while later, the interviewer, Kirika, appeared before the camera and sat on one of the two sofas in the middle of the room. It  seemed she tried to go for a more relaxed atmosphere for her guests. Kirika was quite the famous reporter in Kyoto, even Akagi knew about her, and being on her show was quite the rare honor. After getting seated, she introduced herself, thanked the sponsors, and then moved to begin the interview.

"Without further ado, please welcome my guest, the one everyone is calling the Hero of Free World Online, Nina Hoshinomi!" Right after she said this, a short girl with purple hair wearing a hoodie and basketball shorts appeared from just off stage. There was a live audience in the room who began clapping as the young girl took her seat across from Kirika. Hishya waved back to the crowd and thanked Kirika and the producers for having her.

"It's good to have you here Ms. Hoshinomi, or should I call you Hishya?" Many of the returnees had taken to their avatar's name, so she asked just to be sure.

"Hishya is fine. I'm used to it." She answered.

"Then Hishya, we have much to discuss, but I would like to allow you to tell us a little bit about yourself. We know you as the one who led the effort to escape the game, but we really don't know much about you personally." Kirika opened with a pretty standard question for her guests.

"Well, there is both little and much to say I guess." Hishya then began an abridged explanation of her time before FWO. She explained that she was diagnosed with terminal M.D. and that she was bedridden since she was a child. She'd spent nearly ten years in VR almost 24/7 and went on to discuss the effect such long term diving had on her life.

"That's truly awful, to have to endure such a thing at your age is unimaginable." Kirika looked genuinely sad. "But, if you're up and moving, I assume you're no longer sick?" Hishya didn't look like a bedridden girl after all.

"Nope!" she smiled. "Whatever changed me and the others into our game avatars also cured me of my disease, so I'm 100% healthy." her face lit up as she explained this and she did a muscle pose.

"That's good to hear. At least there was a silver lining to your time in FWO." Kirika commented. "We know that many survivors had their bodies changed, but some of them also kept their in-game powers." Akagi had made that quite public early today. "If you don't mind, could you show us a bit of magic? I know everyone at home is dying to see it," she asked with a smile.

"Sure, I don't mind." Hishya flicked her finger causing a small flame to appear above her palm. It was a basic fire spell that every player with MP could use. "Is this good enough?" Hishya asked as she manipulated the flame and made it dance.

"That's truly amazing; you really can use magic." Kirika smiled as the audience cheered. "I assume you can do much more than create such a tiny flame." She chuckled.

Hishya extinguished the flame and gave a nervous laugh. "Perhaps."

“How do your parents feel, I mean about having a super powered daughter?” Kirika asked.

“They've been really accepting of both my powers and my new appearance. They told me that as long as they got to keep me around, nothing else mattered.” She gave an embarrassed smile.

“That's so nice to hear.” Kirkia smiled. “I can imagine any parent would be thrilled to see their child cured of such a horrible illness.”

“Just being able to spend time with them has been a blessing.” Hishya gave a big smile. "I never thought I would get to experience hugging them again, let alone being able to go home and walk around!"

"Now then,” Kirkia continued. “Let's dive into the real reason you're here. We've read many of the stories online or seen a few of the statements other survivors released about their time in FWO, but what can you tell us about it?" She asked. "How was it as someone on the ground in a leadership position like you were; it can't have been easy."

Hishya didn't even know where to begin. "When we first found out that death in the game would kill us in the real world, most people panicked, while some didn't believe it was possible."

"I can't even imagine being in that situation," Kirika commented.

"It was pretty bad, lots of people freaked out, and it was pretty much chaos for the first week as people tried to get in the best position to survive." Hishya sighed.

"Did people not cooperate?" Kirika asked. Cooperation seemed like the obvious thing to do to survive, at least from her perspective. 

"Not really." Hishya shook her head. "You have to realize that most people playing the Alpha were pretty hardcore gamers. FWO was marketed as allowing more lone-wolf styles of play than other MMOs, so most of us went into it with a pretty uncooperative attitude. The game rewarded players for working on their own, so that didn't help things either. Once we heard that we could actually die, our fight-or-flight instincts kicked in, and it became every man for himself." Hishya had a pained expression. "I wonder just how many more people would have survived if we worked together from the start."

"Well, it's only natural to look out for yourself isn't it?" Kirika pointed out that was human nature to place yourself above others in such dire situations. "So I can't imagine most would fault the trapped players for being more concerned with their own lives than the lives of strangers."

Hishya thought for a moment. "Perhaps you're right, but I still feel bad for not helping those people when they needed it the most." She had abandoned more than one person in those early days, including a friend. "My selfishness might have cost me something important."

"But in the end, you were a big part of why the game was cleared and the trapped people were released, weren't you? Isn't that enough?" She was trying to cheer her up. "I think, if you have any guilt, shouldn't saving those 1400 people be enough to clear your conscious? 

"I was only one of many dedicated people who cleared the world bosses," Hishya said. "I couldn't have done it alone, and without the sacrifice of so many good people, I wouldn't be sitting here now." her face had a dark expression. “So I would never take credit for clearing the game.” she continued. "As for my guilt, I don't know. Saving those people made me happy, but I don't think I can every shake this feeling of regret, especially after......" her words stopped.

Seeing that Hishya didn't want to continue this topic, Kirika moved on. "True. But we've heard from other survivors that you were key in keeping morale high, and your skills and knowledge were invaluable in defeating the bosses." She continued. "It would seem, to me, that you're downplaying how important your role was. At least from other survivors' perspectives, you are a hero." Since the end of the incident, most of the survivors had given Hishya glowing praise for her actions in the game.

"I've been called that many times over these last four years, but I've never thought of myself as one," Hishya said. "I'm just someone who played way too many video games and got good at them. "She chuckled.

"I don't think there are many times where that's a good thing, but this was definitely one of them." Kirkia smiled.

"Indeed." Hishya gave a wry smile.

“But why you? Did you intentionally seek out leadership or did it just kind of happen?” Kirika asked her.

“Honestly, a mix of both really.” Hishya answered. “Once things calmed down I started talking with some of the other players that I knew. We put together a team with the intention of beating the game as fast as possible.” she continued. “My extensive experience with these types of games meant that I was always giving advice or coming up with plans, until eventually, I kinda found myself running things.” she scratched the back of her head. “I figured I might be useful, but I never expected the others to trust me as much as they did!” Hishya did enjoy the attention she revived and the praise and adoration from the other players, but she usually tried to play the stoic humble character.

 

The interview continued as Kirka asked about many of the moments during the FWO incident. She touched upon her relationship with the other players, asked her about her greatest regrets, and much more. At about the halfway point, she asked Hishya what she intended to do now that she was free from her disease.

"I'm honestly not sure." She scratched her cheek. "I never really gave thought to such things before. I always assumed that my illness would be the end of me." There was no point in thinking of a future you would never have.

"Have you thought about using your powers to help people in the real world? Perhaps working with either the Japanese government or the United Nations?" Hishya's had the power to drastically alter the world depending on how she used it. “It would be kinda neat to have a real life superhero!”

"I'm not sure, but I think I would enjoy helping people in need. So maybe?" For right now, all she wanted to do was spend time with her family and enjoy her second chance at life. Anything beyond that was a secondary concern to her.

"I see...." Kirika's face looked uncomfortable as she asked the next question. "So would you be open to using your power to defend the world from other players?" It was the question that everyone knew was coming, but knowing didn't make it any easier.

Hearing her question, both Hishya and Akagi knew exactly what she was getting at. Hishya's blood ran cold, and her hands started shaking, causing the interviewer to panic slightly.

"Are you alright? I'm sorry if my question upset you!" She frantically tried to calm Hishya down. She hadn't wanted to ask this question, but her producer had forced her.

"Its-Its alright...... I would have to answer that question eventually, so why not now." She took a deep breath and composed herself; she was still shaken but gave her response anyway.

"I have no intention of ever standing against Akagi." She declared as she stared into the camera.