Into the Metaverse

"Hey, he's waking up!"

Haruto blinked his eyes open. He felt dreadful. He was on some sort of hospital ward, that much was obvious, sterilised white practically everywhere. Sojiro, Futaba and Wakaba were all staring at him. Shit.

"Hey," he murmured, trying to push himself upright. Ah, they'd bandaged his arm. How nice of them.

"Don't get up so fast, idiot," grumbled Sojiro, shaking his head. "Honestly, I let you out for one weekend and you almost get your arm sliced off?"

"What did you do, Haruto?" demanded Futaba, obviously peeved. "You're not allowed to go to hospital the day before school!"

"Don't remember," said Haruto, with his best attempt at sounding blurry. And in fairness he still felt pretty blurry, so he imagined it was convincing.

"Numbskull," muttered Futaba.

"The doctor said you should be fine to go once you regained consciousness," said Wakaba. "They'll probably come over and do some cognitive tests to make sure you didn't sustain any brain damage, but fortunately you managed to avoid losing too much blood. They think you just passed out from the shock of it all."

How humiliating.

"Right," he muttered.

"Honestly, what a troublesome kid," said Sojiro, pushing his glasses up his nose. "And don't think that means you can get out of paying rent this week."

"Ugh, you're merciless," muttered Haruto, letting himself fall back onto his pillows.

"Just trying to instill some common sense," he said dryly.

"Ah, Haruto-san, you're awake," said the doctor he'd seen before, spotting him. "I'm just going to fetch some tests for you, alright? If you can answer them you're free to go with your family."

"Thanks," said Haruto.

"Aw, you're blushing," said Futaba, leaning into him.

"Am not," said Haruto, trying to hide his face and failing miserably.

"You're not fooling anyone, kiddo," said Wakaba, chuckling.

Would his own parents have shown up here if they'd found out he was injured?

Probably best not to linger on it, said Arsène.

Yeah. They'd made their choice some time ago.

"Alright, Haruto-san," said the doctor, re-appearing on the scene. "If you can just answer a few questions for me…"

The doctor quizzed him on various basic things like where he lived and what year it was, before declaring him cognitively functional and letting them all go—with instructions to change his bandages regularly until the wound healed, of course.

The car ride back to Sojiro's house was fairly calm, but before Haruto could step inside, Wakaba pulled him aside.

"I'd just like to talk to him alone for a moment," she said, catching Sojiro's look of confusion.

"Pfft, good luck, kid," he said, stepping inside.

Wakaba walked him a short way down the street, down to the laundromat—as empty as usual.

"Gonna teach me how to use one of these things?" quipped Haruto, leaning against one of the washing machines.

"No," said Wakaba, as business-like as ever. "I think you know what I'm going to ask you."

"It was the… project you asked me to look into," he said, keenly aware they were still technically in a public place. "It was more dangerous than I expected. I wouldn't usually run into… problems like this in any other areas."

Wakaba narrowed her eyes, clearly picking her next words carefully. "Does the entire process work differently in there to how it does out here?"

Haruto sighed. "It's… almost like a video game. Anything that happens inside—if you deal with it in there it doesn't affect you at all out here. Regardless of how bad it is."

"I see," murmured Wakaba. "We'll talk more about this some other time."

"Of course."

"Let's head back."

***

"So," said Wakaba-the two of them were now alone in the living room, Sojiro having been drawn into one of Futaba's schemes, "you can't get injured in the cognitive world?"

"It's not that you can't," said Haruto, rubbing his arm self-consciously, "it's that you have… abilities in there you don't have in this world. And things like coffee and food change their properties. If you eat something in the Metaverse it can heal you. And there's a kind of… magic you can do, if you know how, to heal yourself."

"I see," said Wakaba, her brow creasing. "It makes sense. It is a world based off of thought, after all. But this is not the case with Shido?"

Haruto folded his arms, leaning back in his seat. "How much do you already know about the Metaverse? You didn't tell me when you asked me to do this."

"Ah," said Wakaba, cracking a smile, "I suppose not. I'll explain myself then; I know it's a different dimension built off human thought. I know that, with the right tools it can be manipulated from the inside—though most of my research has been concerned purely with its mechanics, and from what I can determine a large nexus of emotion has formed under Tokyo—possibly because it's such a large city. I imagine similar nexuses exist under other urban areas as well. And lastly—probably most importantly—I know that individuals showing extreme psychological abnormalities can form their own unique pocket dimensions within the cognitive world."

"Right," said Haruto. "I call those places Palaces."

"Palaces?" said Wakaba. "What an interesting name."

"I don't know why it occurred to me—just instinct, I guess."

"Hmm," said Wakaba.

She was thinking hard, but he doubted even she could guess at the true reason he'd settled on the name. A scientific type like her wasn't likely to consider gods straight off the bat.

"So," she said, straightening up, "these Palaces have something to do with manipulating your targets, is that correct?"

"Pretty much," said Haruto. "It's not just mentally ill people that have them though—in fact I'd say they're much less likely to have a Palace than most of the people I deal with."

"I'm guessing there's a moral element to this," mused Wakaba. "Given the number of criminals you targeted."

"Correct," said Haruto. "Like you said, the Metaverse is a world based on thought. The most likely people to have a Palace are those who are behaving in a socially unacceptable manner—behind closed doors or otherwise. The centre of their corruption is that their desires have gotten out of control, so for example—a chronic sexual harasser is as likely to have a Palace as a suicidal person. Both have distorted desires, but different kinds."

"I see," said Wakaba, leaning forward in her seat. "I confess I hadn't interrogated the criminal dimension until now. But I suppose it makes sense that such people are more likely to be able to affect the world around them than merely the mentally ill. So Shido has a Palace?"

"Yes," said Haruto.

He couldn't help but wonder if Wakaba realised she had one too. Probably not yet. Hopefully not ever—if he was right then doing this would finally free her of her self-imposed prison before he even had to intervene. Hopefully.

"And this Palace—it has different properties than any you have visited before?"

Haruto winced at the memory of claws cutting into his flesh. "Yeah. All Palaces are personalised to the person that generated them, but Shido's… I've never known any Palace ruler to be able to negate healing in the Metaverse entirely. It's a very unique power—one that I think stems from the knowledge he has of the Metaverse through your research."

Wakaba sighed, hanging her head in shame. "I see. So I've inadvertently made your job harder…"

"It doesn't matter," said Haruto. "I'll find a way around it."

Wakaba looked up at him sharply. "Will doing that get you injured again?"

Ah. Well, that was the difficult part…

"Most likely," he said. "But believe me, I'm used to it."

"If you could heal yourself in there before, I very much doubt that."

Ugh. Damn her quick-thinking ways. "Listen—I don't have any other option. If Shido's instituted a mental block on healing in his Palace there's almost no way for me to knock it out of him—especially since I have no access to him personally. It's a non-starter."

Wakaba leant back, her face pensive.

"He can't be allowed to continue…" she murmured.

"I agree," said Haruto. "I will do this, Wakaba, I swear it. I wouldn't give up on you over something so trivial."

She chuckled, running her fingers through her hair. "You're a sweet kid. Ah… I don't suppose there's any way I could assist you in the cognitive world, is there?"

Haruto frowned. "Assist me?"

"I have all sorts of equipment in my lab for… practically this very thing," Wakaba said. "If I could wire you up to the right sensors it's possible I could track you in the cognitive world—just in case you got in trouble."

"Hmm," said Haruto. It wasn't a bad idea in principle. And it was certainly true that in Shido's Palace, having someone aware of where he was and on hand to call for medical assistance if he needed it would be very helpful, but…

"Ha, still don't trust me, huh?"

"You did try to blackmail me into this," said Haruto, staring at her defiantly. "I'm happy getting Shido out of the way for you, but I'd like to keep my other activities in the Metaverse to myself, thanks. I had enough trouble with Futaba trying to hack my phone."

"I suppose she does take after her mother in that respect," chuckled Wakaba. "Seriously though, Haruto, it would be a lab-test situation only—most of my equipment doesn't even work outside that room, and you'd take the monitor on and off every time you entered the cognitive world—I wouldn't be able to track you without it, even if I wanted to."

"You're sure?" asked Haruto.

"Completely," said Wakaba.

If she was lying though… if she got desperate enough to turn him into the police—discovered her own Palace…

"I see you're still not convinced," sighed Wakaba. "Go in there yourself again if you want, but if you find yourself in need of assistance, I get free time in the lab every Friday. I'm there if you need me."

"Thanks," said Haruto.

He just prayed he wouldn't.

***

Wednesday 20th April

"You need her help," Arsène said, the moment he stumbled into the Safe Room.

He was right. He'd sustained no serious injuries this time, but was so battered and bruised he felt he could barely stand. The Metaverse was surprisingly exhausting with no healing ability.

He sighed, all but collapsing into the nearby chair. "We can't afford to have her betray us on this, Arsène. If she decides to turn on us—"

"We determine how things work in this world, Haruto-or did you forget everything about your power?"

Haruto stared at the ceiling, the colours dulled by his mask.

Arsène moved closer to him, placing a clawed hand on his shoulder. "Remember, she is taking an immense risk by doing this too. And this time, if we die there's no way out."

Why did he always make such good points?

"These are your thoughts too," he pointed out, bemusedly.

Haruto sighed again and sat forward. "Once we get in, can you confirm if the tracker is permanent?"

"I can," said Arsène. "Trust that if that is the case, I will purge it for you."

"Thanks."

"Now let's go and sleep this damage off—you don't want them asking any more questions in the gym."

"Good point," he said, yawning. "Ugh, so much still to do. I need to check Madarame's name. And whoever this newbie is."

"So far they haven't been too much of a bother," said Arsène, as Haruto slipped back out of the Safe Room. "Perhaps they aren't as competent as the creature thinks?"

"Perhaps," said Haruto.

But time in the Metaverse worked differently from outside, both of them knew that. It could take weeks for significant psychological changes to occur—shutdowns were quick, but even they took days unless the person was in ill-health. Brainwashing could be painfully slow-especially for people with Palaces—Haruto had known it would take up to a month until the guilt fully caught up with them and they spilled their guts about what they'd done. So possibly this person was just slow. But possibly they were being strategic. And a clever opponent was the last thing he needed right now.

"Worry about that later. For now, we need to get out of this place."

"Right," he sighed.

…He was really looking forward to getting some sleep.