The world faded in and out of existence. There were moments when Emilia thought she was dead, her soul trapped within this world of ones and zeros etched across the aethernet. Then, the pain would return, and she could imagine no platform where the maintainers would allow such torturous deaths to linger.

The world faded, and Emilia heard someone singing, their voice distant and scattered, tinging over the bricks.

What bricks?

When had she seen bricks?

When had she last been injured so badly that she wished she were dead? Had she ever been that desperate for the pain to end, before this moment?

Was this how Olivier had felt, laying in his hospital bed and slowly coming out of his medically induced coma? The doctors waiting to see how his mind would handle his new reality?

Why had she left him there, alone, but not alone?

She should have stayed, like whoever was singing to her now had stayed.

Who was it, who had stayed with her?

✮ ✮ ✮ One Week Earlier ✮ ✮ ✮

“This is it,” V said solemnly from beneath Emilia.

“Hm?” she hummed, unsure what in the world he was talking about. Maybe it was post-orgasm confusion, or the stress of almost dying finally coming through—although she had rather assumed that the post-near-death-experience sex had been largely stress induced.

Not that it had been bad sex!

As far as ill-advised, post-something-terrible-happening sex went, this had definitely been one of the more enjoyable sessions. Plus, she had already had sex with the man and had intended to do so again at some point. So, no regrets, which was always ideal after sex. Bad sex and a pile of regrets always sucked, although her Censor was pretty damn good at making sure to smack her upside the head—figuratively and literally—if it thought she was about to have sexual relations she would regret later.

“This is it,” V repeated, letting out a long sigh, the puff of hair ruffling Emilia’s already sex tousled hair. “I can now die a happy, happy man.”

Emilia propped herself up to look dubiously down at the man. He smiled innocently up at her.

“We already had sex before this,” she pointed out.

“Yup,” he answered.

“So, why is this time death worthy?”

The other visitor’s smile wobbled slightly, his eyes shining with hard fought amusement. “Cause, last time I didn’t get to enjoy your ass.”

“If I had a dollar…” she muttered, even as she tucked herself back into V’s chest, enjoying the vibrations of laughter echoing under her.

“You’d probably be ridiculously wealthy,” he noted. His breathing stuttered under her ear, just enough that when he asked if her ass was real a second later, she knew it was a forced question.

The man clearly already knew she’d barely changed her proportions. Of course, when she glared up at him, he was still smiling innocently at her, and she had to fight down her own smile at their now constant game. It was cute, if frustrating.

She’d find out the truth eventually, of course— Well, as long as neither of them backed out of meeting up in person.

Three months. They'd discussed it and decided to give themselves just over three real-world months before meeting up in the days before the Eve of the Astral Storm. So much could happen between then and now. They could become enemies in this world. They could find something better to do in the days before one of the country’s biggest celebrations.

It would be summer vacation for her by then. School would be done, and she’d have to decide if next year would be her last—or, if she was just going to say fuck it and graduate without officially finishing the program. Moving on would be both impossibly hard and easy.

A next raid season would be just days from beginning, the current season coming to an end in the next week. Assuming what V had said was true, he was an avid player of real-world raids as well. How powerful would he be? Did he rank in the top heroes? If she looked, when she returned to the real world, would she be able to find him?

Would he be disappointed to learn that she didn’t just dislike real-world raids, but actively avoided them and generally kept her level high?

Would he look and feel the same way? Would she be with Elijah still, risking their relationship to meet up with someone she had hooked up with too many times during a virtual raid?

Would she care?

Would V still like her, with the little difference in her appearance? Those between this avatar’s and her real body? Those between how she had looked whenever they’d known each other and now?

“Yes,” she said, deciding to be honest, as she explained the little tweaks she had made to her body. A little shorter, a little smaller—those things he surely already knew. If he wanted to play pretend, she was game to play along. “My hair in longer in real life.”

“Perfect for tugging during sex?” V asked cheekily, hissing when Emilia turned her head and clamped her teeth into his bare chest, their clothes having been tossed aside—and thankfully not accidentally over the ledge—as they tumbled together.

“Yes,” she responded, because despite the bite, she did quite enjoy her hair being pulled during sex. “I’m older in real life, although I think I still look pretty good for my age. Maybe a bit rundown by the last decade.” That was true, at least. She looked tired and a bit too skinny, but overall, she didn’t think she looked much different than she would if she’d actually been taking perfect care of herself—she’d been as careful as possible not to mess with any of her age related genes, although her knots had still brushed over a few of the less important ones.

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“I think I look a lot of older than I did during the war,” V mused, fingers running idle circles over Emilia’s back. He seemed to be tracing something specific, although she couldn’t figure out what—the movement just seemed too purposeful to not be.

“All those blackaether raids,” Emilia replied blandly, wondering just how much raiding with your life on the line—even if it wasn’t really on the line—constantly wore on your body on soul.

V laughed. “A bit,” he admitted, “but it’s more that I was so young during the war—or, I felt young anyways. I’ve just grown in the last decade.”

“Got fat, did you,” Emilia said, nodding into V’s chest. She giggled and swatted at his hands when they slid down, tickling at her waist.

“I did not,” he stated firmly, easily resisting her attempts to pull his hands away. “Nothing wrong with being a curvy fellow, but I mostly got buff.” One of his hands pulled away so he could dramatically flex nearly non-existent muscles at her.

Emilia blinked blandly at the lack of definition. “So… how close is this body to your real one?”

“Depends on what you consider my real one~” the horrible man teased, laughing when Emilia swatted at him again.

She shook her head, barely resisting the urge to roll her eyes. “Do you have any avatars you’re that attached to?” she asked.

She knew some people got overly attached to their avatars, it was why it was recommended to either raid in a version of your real body, or something you were unlikely to get attached to. Cases of people growing too attached to their virtual selves often made the news, especially when servers closed down. Realizing that the one and zeros you’d come to view as your true self were about to be erased? That was traumatizing shit, and had resulted in a number of suicides over the last decade.

Not only that, but more than a few companies—who were usually the owners of raid platforms that were shuttered—had been issued threats over the years. Buildings had been locked down, especially during the first few server shut-downs, when no one had been expecting such visceral reactions to video games being closed. Several companies had been targeted by shooters, or hit by bombs and chemical attacks.

Now, The Black Knot and SecOps were always informed of shutdowns in advance, their agents slotting themselves into companies as new hires in order to prepare for attacks. It wasn’t exactly common knowledge, but Emilia also knew The Black Knot now utilized the OIC System to track people who were liable to react badly to shut-downs, grabbing them before the announcement was even made to have them placed in facilities that were equipped to help them deal with the transition.

Those transitions… were a bit hit-and-miss, as far as she knew. People, especially those who had something wrong with their real body, understandably took the destruction of the body they wished they could inhabit full-time rather terribly.

It didn’t help that therapists had once recommended virtual raids to people with severe injuries. Injured in the war? Lost a limb? Experience an injury that causes chronic pain? Lose a family member or lover? There were so many reasons therapists had once thought virtual raids a good place to gain a piece of yourself back. Have all your limbs again. Erase that pain. Start a new family. Find new love.

To be returned to a body and life you had managed to escape was not something those people willingly accepted.

“This body is actually closer to my younger self,” V told her, explaining in vague, non-detail that he’d added a few details, taken a few away. “I am a bit taller in real life,” was the most concrete detail he gave her. That, and that he had removed his tattoos from his body.

“Ah~ I did that, too,” Emilia said, pushing herself up to sitting, enjoying the feel of V under her ass. She pointed to the place on her rib cage where several stars lay on her real body—the illegal ones.

V’s hand moved to rub at the spot. “Cute,” he whispered, as though he could see them.

“Maybe I’ll let you see them in real life,” she couldn’t help but add, cheeks burning slightly at the implication. She had a few outfits that left the tattoo visible, but not many—and definitely nothing appropriate for the place they’d agreed to meet up.

The man’s eyes, which had been roving shamelessly over her naked torso, snapped up to hers. So intense—they were so intense.

Intense, and disbelieving. Considering they’d just had great sex for the… fourth? fifth? time in less than 24 hours, she found it difficult to believe he didn’t think she’d at least consider fucking him in real life.

Maybe there was something undesirable about him physically? Not that that had generally stopped her. Nearly everyone could be beautiful, even if that beauty was sometimes extremely unique. She hadn’t seen Olivier under his clothing, but for all that his face was untouched by the injuries he had sustained during the war, she was sure his body was rippled with scars and burns that even the best surgeons couldn’t completely erase.

It wouldn’t have mattered if he had stripped down right there and shown her. Olivier was beautiful, even with his mangled body, the ripple and edge of those scars having brushed against her fingers even as they only touched him through his clothes.

If there were something about V that he truly believed made him that undesirable…

Emilia mentally shook her head. No. There were very few things she’d consider to be absolute dealbreakers, in terms of physical appearance.

More likely, the man was anticipating that she’d either be pissed when she realized who he was—a possibility she definitely wasn’t ruling out—or that something in their real-world relationship would stop her from hooking up with him after learning it.

As interesting as that would be—because, seriously, she’d both fucked her friends before and managed to maintain the relationship, and fucked enemies and ended up dating them—it would also be annoying: she certainly didn’t want to end up in a position where she regretted these moments together.

“Am I going to regret this, when we meet in real life?” she asked, actively choosing to say when and not if.

V hesitated for a long moment, eyes flicking rapidly around the darkness surrounding them before finally landing on the ceiling. “I hope not,” he finally said, sucking in such a deep breath, the movement lifting Emilia slightly. “I can’t rule out that you will, but I do hope you won’t?”

He looked at her with that long-suffering look, eyes too fond, and Emilia reached out to brush her thumb under his eye. V sucked in another long breath, letting his eyes flicker closed as he turned into her hand.

“You’re rather unpredictable,” he breathed out, in a rare moment of honesty. As far as honestly went, it wasn’t much. Even through so many knots and personality shifts, she was known for being chaotic and impulsive—it was part of why her babysitters had found her so troublesome and why her friends were constantly monitoring her for erratic decisions—but she’d been relatively calm during her time with V.

She’d been so predictable, in fact, that when they fought together, they had been perfectly in sync. According to those moments, she wasn’t difficult to predict at all.

When V opened his eyes again, all honesty was gone, instead replaced with a healthy dose of teasing malice. “Perhaps, I can predict what you’ll do more often than I think,” he said.

Emilia blinked down at him, confused by his words and the evil intent written over his face. A squeak escaped her when the man abruptly flipped them, hips shifting over hers because either this world had the shortest refractory period in the world, or V really was just that insatiable.