“If you’re hearing this, I’m already dead. No, seriously, I, Own Momo Goal, am dead. But you already knew that, otherwise, why would you show up to the reading of my will? We all saw this coming, brain cancer’s a bitch and a half.

Well, let’s get to it. Though my parents gave me everything I owned growing up, I never got what I really wanted from them: a loving, caring, close family. They didn’t even give me a properly spelled name, nor ever bothered to fix the mistake on my birth certificate. Well, in a roundabout way, they did give me a loving, caring, close family... member. That was my brother, the only person who kept me anchored to this world. My life revolved around three things: My love of the sword arts, my passion for the virtual reality game Ex-Siege, and Gaia Nines Goal, my little brother.

To my parents, I leave the original copy of the book I wrote with insights on our family sword arts, hidden in the hollow of the tree outside our ancestral dojo’s shrine. 

To my brother, I leave three things: First, my game pod, resting within my room, and everything that goes with it, as well as the deed to our home and all of my money, so you can afford to keep it running for a few years until you get a solid income source of your own. I earned all of that in-game, as you well know, so perhaps you can do the same. Second, I give you my legacy both in reality - a copy of the aforementioned book - and in game, which you can find in vault 9671773, in the starting town of Ichishiro, with a password, that is the title of our shared secret. Finally, I give you my dream and my desires, to reach the top of the rankings and to find as many of the secrets of Ex-Siege as possible. I hope you can remember me as you play the game that was my life when I was apart from you. 

The rest of my assets shall be liquidated and go to the charities listed below, though my three direct relatives have priority for the bidding. If one of them wants anything, it shall go into a private auction between the three of them, all proceeds still going to charity.”

I... I’m sitting here, hearing my only brother’s voice for the last time, in a recording of him reading his own will. I just got a bunch of things I never wanted from him.... I wanted HIM. No game pod could be as good as the games we played together, no book on swordplay could give me the feeling of having someone to watch my back if something happened. No hopes and dreams of his could warm me inside the way that knowing he’d be there, waiting for me to get back did. Mr and Mrs Goal, technically our parents, didn’t seem to care one bit about the loss of their son - if they ever thought of him as their son in the first place. Treating him as an interesting and rebellious pet sounds more accurate. It’s how they treated me until I moved out with Momo.

We had our differences, he kept with the sword - devoted most of his free time to it, in fact - while I dropped it after a few years of practicing our family’s sword arts. He was charismatic, handsome, and well-built. I had a naturally gloomy aura, I was, if anything, effeminate, and built like a twig. While I had some muscle tone, I didn’t have Momo’s large frame and bulging muscles. He had dozens of girls following him around at school, while I was a loner everywhere except in the archery club I was club president for. Despite that, my only happy moments were when we’d just be... together. It didn’t matter what we did, he was a father, a friend, a teacher, and a therapist all rolled into one.

“.... him those, they should be ours to do with how we please!”

“Yeah, they’re not Owen’s alone, we paid for them. We have a say in what happens to them!”

My brother’s first name was supposed to be Owen, but a mistake caused him to be Own on all the government documents, and it took our parents so long to notice that they couldn’t be bothered to go and change every single one of the places that had it wrong. Then, when he was eight years old and decided he preferred to go by his middle name - which was taken from the name of the Shiba Inu my mother had as a young girl - instead of Own, everybody was fine with it, except for our parents. Even now, a decade and a half later, they still refuse to accept his preferred name... hence why he moved out at the earliest opportunity, and took me in when I had my own falling out with them, regarding my grades dropping due to depression.

“Sir and Madam, your son died an adult, and received those items as an adult. If those were gifts to him, they are his property, for him to do with as he wishes. If they were loans, please procure the loan contract, or else few people would side with you regarding that, especially given that you would be taking the material item that mattered most to the deceased from the family member he was closest to. Furthermore, you are showing disdain for your son as a person by not choosing to use his preferred name. As both a family friend and as a lawyer, I would advise you to give this silly idea up, contesting the will won’t work, given these already generous terms. You have the money to keep what matters to you, and his own wealth would be a drop in the bucket compared to yours. It wouldn’t be a matter of keeping a family heirloom, it’d become a matter of penny-pinching to a degree unbecoming of your status”

This... this is the perfect exemplification of standard behavior for them. We were tools they used to make themselves seem more human - oh look, see, we have kids, we do parent things with them like... eating... and giving toys... and martial arts! We do lots of martial arts with the boys, we’re so likable now, right? - and if we made them look bad, or stopped being useful in a particular area, all of our support for that skill got taken away. After I got sick of our ancestral sword arts and switched to archery, I used to get lessons, until I bombed the nationals when I came down with the flu. 

Yeah, that’s right, I got to the nationals - in the “up to 14” age group, not the “up to 9” group - when I was nine. Did they care that I achieved that much? No. Did they care that I was sick enough that my eye was swollen shut? No. All that mattered was that I performed horribly on the national stage. And so, before I touched a bow next, I stopped having lessons, I had my equipment taken away, and my medals and trophies were put somewhere I knew not the location of, for all I know, it could’ve been the dumpster. We didn’t own stuff, we had stuff we were expected to be willing to give them at a moment’s notice. Momo had to get a restraining order to keep them out of our little house in the woods, so they’d stop taking things with them whenever they felt like it.

Ooh, this just... I didn’t expect that I’d be feeling much else besides sorrow and grief for the next few weeks or even months, but now I’m also feeling some degree of raging fury. I can’t stand being in the same room as these two!

“Is there anything else for me?”

“For you, Master Gaia, nothing. All that remains is regarding the exact items to be included in the auction, as well as the exact distribution ratios for the various charities the money would be going to, which both are listed in the documents provided to you. If you wish to leave, you may d - well, that answers that question”

I left before he could even finish saying I could. If I didn’t, I might well have punched them. I jumped the railing outside the office building, falling a good dozen feet instead of taking the stairs, and rolled to kill the force. I then continued to walk towards my bike at a brisk pace, unlocked it, and found that someone else had locked their bike through my wheel. 

“Oh fuck you... really?!?! Come the fuck on. No no no no NO!”

I re-locked my bike, and chose to walk back home instead... after raising the seat on the other guy’s bike a notch. Petty, I know, but I was pissed already. On the way to my brother’s... my house, now... I walked by an indoor archery range, and figured it’d be a good way to blow off some steam.

“How much?”

“It’s 35 for an hour, 20 for every hour after that”

I slapped three twenties on the counter and told him to keep the change, then went over to the racks holding various kinds of bows to pick a good one.

“Hmm... recurve or compound?”

“If you’re a-”

“Zip it”

I didn’t even look at the source of the deep voice from behind me, I just told the guy to shut up while I looked back and forth between the two racks. I’m not normally that... rude, I guess, but I wasn’t myself. The guy took offense to my words, however, so he walked around to face me directly, which caused me to see a towering pile of muscles in a tight red shirt and black shorts, a traditional longbow held in one massive hand, a full quiver on his hip.

“Oi. I was just trying to be helpful. You looked like you might be a newbie, you’re young, and you’re certainly not a regular in this place, at least”

“And I’m just here to blow off some steam, my usual range is closer to home, along with my bows. Now, either leave me alone or get your ass handed to you by a supposed newbie. Your choice, and if the latter, your rules. I’m game for whatever”

The guy’s free hand tightened into a fist as he inhaled sharply, before letting a lungful of air out in a long, drawn-out hiss.

“Fine. 60 Longbow, 120 yards, 6 shots, best of 3. Name’s Trent, by the way. What’s yours, newbie?”

“Gaia. If I had to be named after a goddess, however, it would’ve been more fitting to name me Artemis”

I walked over to the longbows, picked up three before finding one that had the right balance, but the draw was slightly crooked, so I put that one back too. Eight more bows later, I found a good one, and then I grabbed an empty quiver and went to the arrow buckets, instead of a prefilled quiver. I checked the shaft and fletching of each arrow, and barely a quarter were up to a decent standard in my opinion. After picking eight (two spares just in case) and putting on a bracer, I followed Trent to the 120 yard targets. 

He took a solid stance, drew his bow in one swift motion, and released an arrow that landed in the inner red ring - eight points. I grabbed an arrow from the quiver on my back, nocked it to the string, and pulled. It was a bit of a strain, I was more used to 50 pound bows, though I’d done heavier from time to time. Regardless, I pulled it to a full draw, did a final adjustment to my aim, and let go.

“Damn, you’re really not a newbie. Not quite up to my level, but four points ain’t bad for a first shot"

“Hurry up and shoot your next one, will ya?”

“Okay, okay, you’re impatient. I get it”

He cleared his lungs, shook his head a bit, and fired his next shot, almost mirroring his first, but as it was slightly higher, it was only seven points. I wordlessly shot my second arrow, which landed on the line between red and blue, giving me seven points to match his.

“Lucky shot, eh? Watch this”

I wanted to make a snide comment about how everyone who says “watch this” always screws up immediately after, but he’d already drawn his bow, so it would’ve been a foul to interrupt his concentration. Fortunately, snide comment or no, he missed his intended mark, and only got five points, bringing his three-shot total up to 20.

Before he could say anything at all, I had already put an arrow to the string, and scored another six points, to bring my total to 17.

“Okay, the draw weight isn’t that bad, I think I can do better”

“Huh?”

I set down my bow, pulled my bracer off of my left arm, and flashed a not-so-friendly grin at him.

“I’m usually more accurate as a leftie, though a bit weaker on the draw. I guess I never mentioned that”

With those words and a slight chuckle, I put the bracer on my right arm, grabbed the bow, and we took our stances once more. The rest of the round went without another word, his next arrows hitting six, nine, and seven points each, while mine got seven, ten, and a bullseye, bringing our totals up to 42 and 45, for my win. When the range was clear, we went forward to confirm our points and collect our arrows, and a few words were exchanged during that period.

“You’re good. Really good. I’m sorry I made assumptions upon first sight, bu-”

“Are you giving up, or are you gonna go for round two?”

“I’ll play, I’ll play, don’t worry. Sheesh, you’re a real no-nonsense kind of guy”

“I’m just in a bad mood. Otherwise, I’d give you a few pointers”

He flinched, jerking an arrow out with a bit too much force, but then spoke in a tone I could only describe as fiery.

“Oooh, you’re on. You should not have said that, no way, no how, are you gonna give me pointers”

After we got back to our spots, round two was silent save for the sound of bowstrings being released. He scored one bullseye, I got three, and our totals were much farther apart compared to the first round, at 47 to 55, once again my win. I turned to put the gear back, intending to switch to my favored recurve, but he grabbed my shoulder before I got more than a few steps away.

“What? Wanna go for best three of five?”

“Nah, just... here. You showed me something good, taught me a lesson in humility, and to not judge a book by its cover”

With that, he pressed a couple of bills into my hand and went back to shooting. I spent a while with the recurve, managed to get six consecutive bullseyes at max effective distance - though that was probably a fluke, my second best streak was three - and then left just before my allotted time ran out. The half an hour remainder of the walk home was uneventful, and after unlocking the front door, I made my way inside. It still felt weird, empty, and unfamiliar to me, as it was just how I’d left it that morning. Slightly cluttered, lights off, no smell of food coming from the kitchen, and no low hum coming from the VR pod in Momo’s room. 

Just two weeks ago, I always came home from school or the range to find all the lights in the house on, because Momo never remembered to turn them off when he left the room, and everything would be perfectly neat and tidy, often even sparkling clean, thanks to him being a neat freak. If I got home early, he’d be in the world of Ex-Siege, but an hour or two later, he’d come out and go to start making dinner for the two of us, regardless of whether I’d come back by then or not. He always seemed to know when I’d be back, even if I didn’t, as the rice would finish within five minutes of me opening the door, or the pizza in the oven would have just started to form a crust.

But now... the hall was dark, the air scentless, the house silent, and my cereal bowl still sat on the counter waiting to be washed. I couldn’t help but let out a small sob as my vision turned cloudy with tears.

“Momo... I miss you...”

It was just then, the kind of timing you’d only see in movies and shitty webnovels. There was a power outage. Why, I don’t know. But it was brief, by the time I could remember where the circuit breaker panel was, the lights in the whole house went on all at once. With them came the VR pod’s distinctive low hum as it did a status check, although its internal battery would’ve kept it running for an hour or more, were someone in it. However, it had been turned off, and the outage made it turn on like the lights, the TV, and everything else in the house. It made me think about the pod once more, and with those thoughts came a rush of memories.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Gai, would you like to play Ex-Siege with me?”

“I know money’s kinda tight, don’t spend it on another pod”

“Don’t worry, I can afford it, no problem”

“Liar. One of them would cost more than this house”

I had checked before he brought that up that time, and while he got his for (almost) free as a lucky winner of the beta test lottery, they normally cost upwards of 200 grand, and that’s if you buy it directly from the manufacturer without a middleman. Otherwise, 400 or even 500 thousand bucks is considered a miracle bargain too good to be true. Our house probably didn’t cost much over $300k as the house next door sold for $278,500 a few months after we moved in, and the one across the street has a starting bid price of $240k, which has only gone up to $296k thus far, with two weeks to go out of the initial three month bidding period (though, there was a rule where one could buy it instantly if they raised the bid by over $100k in one go, assuming that person checks out as a potential buyer)

“It’d be fine. You’ll love it! You can play as an archer and hunt without restrictions, try out cool new bows, arrows with special effects, and so much more!”

“Bro, I’m fine with my not-boring reality. I’d rather keep the money for your treatments”

“I’ve got enough money for all of my treatments, with the exception of a few really extreme ones. Oh, speaking of, I’ve got an appointment the day after tomorrow, to see how it’s progressing. Tomorrow I’ll spend all day on the Sun Dragon Raid with the rest of Aspirations¹Momo’s guild, which has 6 of the 10 top rankers”

Two days passed in the blink of an eye, and I waited at home for him to come back, which he did, visibly shaken.

“Gai... I’ve got some bad news... My brain tumor has grown beyond the degree we’d expected, and at this rate, in two weeks, it’ll start causing permanent brain damage... well, it’s already caused a bit of noticeable damage that they think they can fix, but it’ll be worse soon. And it’ll have a risk of doing so even earlier with intense stimulation, so no fighting, either in real life or in virtual reality. Even so much as just an intense sports game on TV could be bad, so I was told to do what I need to, write a will, say a maybe-goodbye to friends and family, pray if I’m religious, because the operation scheduled on thursday next week has a 40% mortality rate”

“Mo... I’m so sorry...”

“Hahaha, it’s nothing to apologize for, little Gai, it’s just the price I had to pay to have such a wonderful brother. But... promise me that you’ll do what I ask after the operation. It’s either my last request as stated in my will, or it’ll be related to my few months of recovery. Promise me this, will ya?”

“Okay... I promise... but you promise me that you’ll come back alive. If the grim reaper comes for you, fight it with everything you got, ‘k?”

“You dummy, of course I’ll do that. I can’t be leaving you all alone, I’d be failing as a brother, and you know me, I never fail”

Well, he failed. I couldn’t stop crying for days. I still tear up over the slightest things now, a week and a half later... well, that’s actually not a long time when it comes to grief, so it’s natural that I’d still cry easily. Why... why him? Why now? Why not our fucking parents instead?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I... should probably make an account... even though I probably won’t like the game much... at least I should give it a shot, right? It’s what he wanted. I don’t even know where to begin handling the pod”

With that thought murmured unconsciously, I set down my bag, turned off anything that didn’t need to be on, grabbed a sandwich from the fridge, and headed straight for my computer to learn about both the pod and the most popular VR game since its launch a few years ago.

“Hmm... so, I strip naked... place this helmet on... put this in my mouth... lie down here... and press the button on my helmet? Seems simple enough, though kinda weird. Why naked? After that, just follow the instructions provided, and if I need a question answered, there’s an AI assistant that will help me. How handy. Now, for character creation...”

CaTastrophy427

So, this is just chapter 0 of my side project. As of this moment, I have not even created a document for chapter 1, although I have plans for much much more than just the next few chapters. As with my main project (Saga of Tama the Immortal), updates will be slow, however, in the case of this one, updates will come whenever I finish a chapter, not in batches. This is what I write when I don't feel like writing another bit of STI (I really need to work on that acronym lol), but still want to write something. So, I might write two chapters in the span of three weeks, or I might write zero in the span of three months. It depends on how I feel. Finally, check out my Discord Server, which is primarily for STI, but has a section for this novel as well. Come and chill, or lurk, or send memes, or ask me questions about basically anything