Chapter Text
Akatsuki hadn't come down from her high by the time they reached the guild building. She was damp from the dense fog that had dispersed a short while ago, shuddering from the cold, and beaming bright as she crossed the floor attached to Shiroe's arm.
The time didn't matter, she just knew it was late. The others would be asleep - unless they'd heard the commotion. Maybe Nyanta had come back and calmed everyone down. Though Akatuski immediatley noticed Tetora looking at the pair ascending the staircase from the balcony above - all he had to do was raise one eyebrow and Akatsuki flushed deeply.
Nyanta was next to appear at his door with a concerned expression. He caught Shiroe's eye, who just nodded toward him. He would be caught up later.
Just like that, they were in Shiroe's office. I'll share your responsibility, he had said. Akatsuki couldn't have hoped for a kinder response after her mistakes.
"I'll need to make something up for Shopping District, and everyone else who was investigating the moving mountains. The, er - giant ascot crab," Shiroe said tiredly, flopping down on his desk chair as though it were his bed. Akatsuki felt a pang of guilt.
"What were the theories when were on the field, my lord?" Akatsuki suggested. "Meteors, mining, magic experiments?"
"Meteors would leave much more evidence," Shiroe said. There's no trace of heat markings, alien or non-native material, no indication of direction of travel, and of course no meteor leaves craters that shape. It's too late to fake evidence for that, and that's not something we're getting involved in anyway."
"And mining isn't a good idea," Akatsuki sighed. "There's nothing to mine for there. And why mine in that shape?"
"It's somehow more feasible," Shiroe shrugged. "But it would take a massive workforce a very long time to do that, and their tools would have left marks, as would have their camp.
"So... Magical experiment?" Akatsuki asked.
Shiroe clicked his tongue.
"People don't tend to do magical experiments in Elder Tale, as you know. Despite technology changing from in-game rules to following the laws of physics, those laws don't exist in the real world. There are just the spells we're given. And as far as I know, I'm the only one who has created new magic."
"Chunks of mountains are falling off?" Akatsuki hazarded. "Making them look like they're moving, and leaving holes in the ground?"
"Holes those chunks would be filling, leaving mounds instead," Shiroe shook his head. "And chunks breaking off caused by what, leaving no marks?"
Akatsuki hung her head.
"So, the only possibility is..." Shireo began, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose with one finger. "You put another giant crab there. You change it so it's not a threat to anyone, and you make an event to destroy it." Akatsuki blinked.
"You can't be serious."
"It's the only realistic cause of the marks we saw and the sightings of moving mountains," Shiroe deadpanned.
"But a new event?"
"There was a new solo dungeon," Shiroe shrugged. "Unless you made that too." Akatsuki flinched. "No no, it was a joke. Sorry. I didn't mean that. It was meant to be funny."
"You really think I can make it seem realistic?"
"Yes," Shiroe answered plainly. "Besides, we'll work on it together. The challenge can be to stop the crab before it disappears again. Then people won't question why no one found it earlier. These marks will be like a pre-quest summons. It gets from A to B, we stop it. Guilds will try building walls, throwing nets over it, freezing it, all kind of stuff. It doesn't really matter if the difficulty isn't balanced," he added with a demonic smirk. "The reward can be something exciting but wouldn't gather too much attention. For instance, if the quest is successful, everyone who participated in stopping the crab gets to aquire a new class skill of their choosing.
"And high level players would love to get something new," Akatsuki added. They both smiled.
Shiroe's desk and papers, for a while, went unnoticed. They were watching one another. Akatsuki was still stood at Shiroe's side. It hadn't occured to either that they were staring.
"But before we get onto that, can you use your add ability power to give me any admin powers?" Shiroe asked.
Akatsuki experimentally tapped the ability, then selected Shiroe - and while it was shocking to see the list of free abilities Shiroe could gain, neither was surprised to see only vanilla abilities there. Nothing game-breaking.
"The only thing Gods can't do in Elder tale is create more Gods," Shiroe mused. "Maybe the computer really wasn't left there by some other person with admin powers looking for some fun, just an error in the game files." Akatsuki nodded solemnly. "Sit," Shiroe said quietly. "There's a lot to do." Akatsuki gladly took a chair from the corner of the room and pulled it close to his as he continued scanning her abilities.
"Server status: Online players are still thirty thousand," Shiroe mused out loud. "No surprise there." Then, "freeze time... Akatsuki, if you freeze time, does it really work?" His brow was heavy with concentration. Akatsuki nervously nodded.
"Do it. Move around me, then unfreeze time," Shiroe instructed her. "No tracker abilities." Akatsuki obeyed, tapping the freeze time button. Immediatley the almost-familiar feeling washed over her. She quickly shifted around him, watching his slender frame continue to face where she was a moment ago, then unfroze time.
Shiroe startled, spinning around with a glint of fear in his eyes.
"Gods," he muttered. His eyes flickered, laden with calculations. "Take my hands," he said, lifting his hands. Akatsuki placed her small hands in his. "Now freeze again. I'm just going out on a limb here, but maybe if you're hold-"
Akatsuki froze time. Then she was almost surprised as Shirioe froze mid-sentence. Clearly his suspicion had been wrong.
She was going to unfreeze time again when something stirred in her. Her hands were still in his. His were still just as warm as before she froze time. And just as soft as well. She stood, her feet rooted firmly on the ground, as Shiroe looked her square in the eyes. His face was one of concern, thorough concentration, and a glint of excitement.
His lips were even hung slightly open, mid-word.
Akatsuki gulped heavily, and took a tiny step forward. With one hand she clung more tightly onto his, and with the other she raised it to his head-level, then let it slide down the back of his head, stroking his hair.
This was wrong. This was deeply wrong. Even so, her face came to be an inch from his, her hand latched tightly on his pulled into her chest. Her other arm wound around his neck.
It would be so easily to lift herself onto his lap and kiss him. Or just go to sleep right there, in his arms. She was plain exhausted.
But she knew she couldn't. She shook her head, huffed, and stepped back, placing her hands innocently inside his. When she unpaused, it was obvious enough that she had shifted position slightly.
"ing onto me then - oh," Shiroe's voice cut suddenly into existence, only to falter. He sounded slightly disappointed. He furrowed his brow further in thought. If he noticed how bright Akatsuki suddenly was, he didn't mention it. The man was denser than tungsten, after all. "Then can you try creating abilities and giving them to me? Instead of giving me the ones that already exist?" He suggested.
"I took a little look at the menu earlier. Mega complicated. Text overlapping text, bad UI, I don't have any idea what language it is. Coding language, I mean." Shiroe sighed.
"No better time to start than now," he responded.
If it was late earlier, it must have cycled back into early. Akatsuki leaned her whole body on the desk, eyes fluttering open and closed every now and then. Shiroe sat in his desk like always, only studying her own HUD instead of his various papers. She was beginning to gain a new appreciation for the man's constitution.
She had tried her very best, but after some time it ended up being Shiroe telling her exactly what to input, and her inputting it. She had been making more syntax mistakes recently, to both her and Shiroe's frustration. They had successfully created simple abilities - Shiroe could now teleport like she could, change the weather, and create any vanilla item. Many other things they had tried either refused to work, or would be too complicated to figure out.
Akatsuki wondered if this is what a date between the two would be like. If he was secretly enjoying himself more than he let on. If the two of them were somewhere cozier and a bit closer together - somewhere with a chocolate fountain and some starwberries and marshmallows and mood lighting - and if possibly the fate of the world wasn't resting on their shoulders, it would have been a great time.
Shiroe hadn't called on her for a while. She was just resting her eyes.
This time when she awoke, it was bright. Shiroe was asleep right in front of her, sharing the desk. She also saw something new - an icon in the bototm left corner of her vision. A rotating circle beneath two short words:
Applying patch...
Akatsuki shot up, rattling the desk. She opened her inventory and stared with wide eyes - her long list of vanilla abilities somehow seemed tiny. Everything was gone.
"Huh? What's the matt-" Shiroe began, but froze. He saw it too. Then he looked at Akatsuki, asking the silent question.
"Gone," she said quietly. He blinked, then sat up straight, opening his own HUD.
"I've still got the abilities we made," he half-smiled. "Good thing we made them when we did." Akatsuki faced the ground and Shiroe considered her. "Sorry," he eventually said. "I feel kinda bad, I mean do you wish you still had them?"
"No," Akatsuki said with a smile slowly forming on her face. She was coming to realise it was the best she had felt since she found the computer. "Actually, I'm glad to be rid of it all."
"All the same, we need to go back to that dungeon as soon as possible and see if the computer is still there," Shiroe said. Akatsuki nodded, and they stood up.
In the guild building, people were milling about with concern. Doubtless waiting for Shiroe to emerge from his room and make sense of everything. He and Akatsuki paced down the balcony and to the stairs. Curious eyes watched them the whole way, including a more-smug-than-usual Tetora, despite the strange message everyone had got.
"Going to check something," he loudly explained himself as he paced for the main entrance with everyone else. No further questions were asked, and soon they met the fresh outside air.
Nyanta was waiting behind the door with a stern expression.
"Well?" He asked.
After making sure they were out of earshot, Shiroe gave him the whole run-down, including what their next task was. He looked almost as surprised as Shiroe did when she had told him. Strangely, she found herself getting used to this conversation already. It still made her uncomfortable when Nyanta studied her closely.
"Very well," Nyanta said. "Go. And good luck you two, nya."
Shiroe smiled a small smile, then turned back to the path ahead.