"They'll just ignore you."

Oh, joy, Serina thought as she heard that statement. More pointless existences. "Ah," she responded tactfully. "I see." She couldn't stand people who did nothing but stand within themselves, as she put it. A green exclamation point with a "2" next to it showed itself on the notification bar to offer a diversion from this train of thoughts, proudly carrying a notification above its head.

Success! HandsomeRebel44 is now on your friends list!

Serina let out a quiet "Yesss!" before continuing on to read the next notification.

Some of Rhythm Shootout's servers are undergoing maintenance that may be near your real-world play area. Varying degrees of downtime may occur.

She groaned. "I can't stand downtime," Serina confided. "I'm trying to perfect this one solo." She felt herself slowly reddening. "Ahaha, it's not anything major," she said in a feeble attempt to cover up her mistake. Said mistake was, of course, revealing her flaws. At least I haven't disclosed the song name, she reassured herself. Serina took most things very seriously, and this game was no exception; it was, in fact, one of the most shining examples of the rule.

*Pfzzt*

Serina felt her ankle fizz, as if it had been dipped in soda. Looking down, she gasped when she saw her leg breaking into yellow and magenta pixels, then slowly the rest of her lower body. Any seasoned player knew what this meant. "Craaaaap!", she screamed, and then she went black except for a message.

Error 59. Network error. Please come back soon, LuvGunner103! We'll miss you!

Shutting down Rhythm Shootout.

On the other hand, Shinobu felt the same. Staring at the source, she found out that she was also fading. 'Damn.' she cursed mentally, quickly opening her personal windows and selecting Log Out as to avoid loss of data. Everything was black except for a message that told her that she had been successfully logged out of her account.

She awoke in the VRP. Aqua barked enthusiastically, placing his front paws near her left arm and his tongue hanging out. Shinobu smiled softly. "Did you miss me, Aqua?" The dog barked in response. She smiled and petted his head. "Hey, I'm just going to go out for a while, alright? Don't chew on the pillows again." she told the puppy.

She removed the straps that connected her to the VRP and stepped out. She walked out the door, holding a notebook and a pencil in one hand. She made her way to a park near her place and sat on a bench. It was nice that no one approached her- Her avatar in the game looked exactly like her.

She opened the notebook and scanned its pages- Drawings. Drawings everywhere. It was one of her hobbies other than playing Rhythm Shootout- she needed something else to do, didn't she?

Right while he was in the middle of playing, his hand started to pixelize to the point that he couldn't tell what frets his fingers were on. He "Tsk"d in frustration and looked up. Tarius had apparently left, so it was just him and Shinobu in the alleyway. Suddenly he received the server maintenance message as the whole world went black.

Groggily, Soul removed the helmet connecting him to his rather customized VRP and sighed. He cautiously placed the helmet on a small table beside his bed and stared out the large window. His room on the third floor of the hospital gave him a nice view of a nearby park he'd played at when he was younger, and he liked to think that, if he was ever allowed to leave this damned bed, he'd go there and play once more. As it was, that wasn't likely to happen. While his in game avatar and himself looked quite similar, he was thinner and paler than said avatar. He'd been in the hospital for the past five years now, and for the entire time all he'd have to look forward to each day was Rhythm Shootout and the books the nurses brought for him. He was about to pick up one of said books when he saw her, sitting on a bench in the park. That... it was Shinobu. How? She looked exactly as she did in game, but in real life she looked... serene. He coughed heavily and blinked. In his excitement, he'd gone up to the window without even realizing it. He slowly dragged himself back into bed and stared out the window. Now, more than ever, he wanted to get out of this hospital., and into that park.

He hastily ripped a large page out of a book he'd read a hundred times over and wrote in red pen across the page before folding it up into the best paper airplane he could make. He slowly made it to the window and opened it as wide as his weak arms would make it and threw the plane. He prayed that it reached her, but he had no control over that. He'd done what he could, the rest was up to fate.

Shinobu blinked as a paper plane fell in the middle of her notebook. It looked like it was simply ripped out of a random book and folded into the plane. Then she looked over to where the plane came from and swore that she saw a thinner and paler version of Soul. She blinked. And again.

Did Soul customize his own avatar to look like him, exactly what she did? She shook the thoughts out of her head. Anyone could do that- it was just a little rare in Rhythm Shootout. The only people she knew did it was Soul, herself, and Abyss. Blanc never revealed herself to them, and Orpheus looked like a corrupted version of himself in the game. Alice was basically a white version of herself in the game.

Unfolding the plane, she saw a message written in red. She looked again to where the plane came from. 'A hospital...?' she thought. 'Is Soul hospitalized..?'

Maybe she could try visiting him or something, she thought. But then again, would he recognize her? She stared at the paper as she argued with herself over what to do.

He watched as Serina pixelized before him. "No! Wai-" it was too late. "Bye."

Soon everyone on his friend's list was offline. "Huh.. well there goes that." Sometimes it was nice living in a different region. People had never heard of where he was from or went there on vacation once. The accents clashing was amusing though. Slightly bored, he signed off. He saw it was relatively nice out. He put on his shoes and grabbed his Sea Dogs hat before heading out the door. He started walking.

He saw a few people he knew. His friend walking around as well. They chatted for a short bit, but he soon had to go with his cousin. Another girl Tarius knew asked for a hug. He was much taller than her and had to bend over a bit. She laughed and asked if he was busy. "No, why?" "Walk with me." He didn't argue. They started talking, roaming around town.

He sighed with relief as the small paper plane landed squarely in her lap. Perhaps five years of games had improved his aim? As good an explanation as any. She looked up and saw him in the window apparently and he waved in a friendly way. He could tell she was conflicted as to what she should do, which was probably quite natural. They had, after all, just met in game. It was quite shocking to realize that they lived so close to each other without ever having seen one another, though given Soul's... situation, it wasn't really all that surprising. He wasn't in such a rush this time, so he took the time to find some blank paper and write "Come on up. Room 325" before folding it into a second plane and sending it out the window.

He then picked up the phone on the bedside table to let the front desk know he'd be having a visitor quite soon and too let them in.

Shinobu intercepted another paper plane. Catching it, she read Soul's message.

"Come on up. Room 325" was the message. He had waved at her, so he probably DID recognize her. Well that was a relief. She nodded, stood up, notebook and pencil in hand and left the park to visit her friend from Rhythm Shootout.

A few minutes was all it took for her to get in. Soon she found the room numbered 325. Taking a deep breath and then holding it, she entered the room.

There she saw Soul, only thinner and paler than the in game character. Only then did she realize that he looked familiar- Then she remembered. Kazuno was sent to the same hospital Soul was in when he attacked by a hacker. She shook away the bad memory- She hated remembering it.

She blinked, remembering that she was still in the room.