Free Grace

Familiarity is a prison in and of itself.

The white walls of a room, decorated with trinkets from achievements in the past.

A wide-open floor, plenty of room to frolic upon.

The grand piano in one corner – the touch of every key giving off a sense of nostalgia in her ears.

Grace had often dreamt about this room in her idle times, and when she regained the memories of Miyabi, it finally made sense.

This was her home of many years, a life before her current one. And because of that, she had trouble parting with it. Perhaps, she felt guilty that her current life was so disconnected from what she was before. Perhaps, she wanted to go back to those days, but the passing of her father cut it short.

Grace stared in the mirror, her hair shifting from pink to black and back again. She couldn’t choose who she wanted to be. As such, her dream world had formed this room as a bridge connecting both.

Her eyes turned to the window to the outside.

If only I can leave, but I’m trapped here.

After her father’s passing, Rentaro Samukawa approached her. As the main architect of Project Grace, it seemed natural that he would take over for her care. He was her father’s trusted advisor and right-hand man, so there was no question when his last will had the codes to access all her research data.

With those in hand, Samukawa had instead stolen her existence and trapped her in this dream world, running a simulation that used her as a core to replicate her capabilities.

Shadows crossed over the sky, bits of code serving to keep her contained here. Even if she fought them off, there was nowhere for her to physically go, so they would simply keep coming back endlessly. Just like her former life, she was stuck helplessly looking out the window, passing her time on the piano while waiting for someone to come.

The monotonous days of her childhood had been broken up by the presence of Ryuji. Whether it was the treats that he brought or the glimpses of a normal life that he offered beyond these walls, Miyabi looked forward to each and every one.

Similarly, living in Haru’s mind had been the spark of a new life where she began to see the world. Through him, she experienced school life, coming of age, and their career of aiding comatose patients.

Her existence was inevitably tied to others. And only through them could she continue to exist. But it could be counted as a miracle that technology had progressed so far as letting her mind survive without a body, even if it was anchored to a main server.

Suddenly, a rumble rippled through the room, raising her alertness. It came from the outside, making her heart bubble with some hope. Someone was here for her, but who?

There was hardly a need to wait for the answer as one wall suddenly exploded, someone bursting through like a cannonball landing. A man in full armor rolled and tumbled, fighting to correct himself. He stood up and shook it off before casually making a joke.

“Geez, it’s like fighting off 100 jealous ex-girlfriends after you give up on that plotline.”

He turned around, suddenly noticing Grace’s presence in the room.

“Haru! You came for me!”

Grace immediately tackled him in excitement, to which Haru instinctively dodged.

“What, how mean of you!”

“Sorry, I’ve only just been dodging copies of you for the past who-knows-how-long. Either way, I don’t have much time to explain. We need to get you out of here.”

“How? Those copies that you’ve been fighting never seem to end. Even if you beat them, they will just revive.”

Haru summoned a portal and reached his hand in. He pulled something out that looked like a garbled cluster of code.

“By using the Megu special. When we found out that Samukawa was using your data to somehow exploit your abilities, he came up with a countermeasure to reverse that control. The only catch is that you would have to be the one to inject this code and morph it based on how it’s done. Think you can manage that?”

Haru tossed her the ball of code before dashing forward to repel the Gray Graces that were trying to spill through the hole in the wall. It was like chopping weeds that burst into particles.

Grace pulled on the blob and stretched it out, quickly analyzing the contents. After only seconds, she understood what had to be done. With a few waves of the hand, the code reformed and filled out, glowing and spinning vigorously like its potency was on display.

“Haru, we need to attack them with this code! That should convert their permissions to under my control!”

“Sounds simple enough. Let me just punch them with it one-by-one… or rather, we probably don’t have the time or luxury of doing that....”

A rumble shook the entire room, and immediately, the ceiling was torn off. A whole sky full of Gray Graces looked down at them. How Haru was able to fight against all of them alone to get here made Grace wonder.

But it didn’t matter. Haru had always been there for her. It was not the time for her to reciprocate. A glow formed around her, and when it faded, her outfit changed to match her determination.

She was now wearing a vibrant kimono, one arm out with tattoos etched down it. A katana was braced against her shoulder, her hair was tied up, and she had bandages around her chest. In her mind, this was how she would embrace her yakuza heritage to fight alongside Haru.

“Meteor!” Grace shouted.

Haru broke into a sweat at that phrase, recalling how she invoked it to aid him with soccer practice once. In the dream world, even that was fair game when trying to help him improve. But that was also a good move as he knew how to dodge them unlike the fakes.

Sure enough, the sky suddenly rained meteors, taking out a good chunk of them above. The room was torn to shreds as Grace and Haru dashed away while dodging the falling projectiles. In the process, the code in Grace’s hands morphed into a soccer ball, which Grace heaved at Haru.

A swift kick slammed into the ball of code, sending it flying toward a group of Gray Graces. It bounced from one to another, ricocheting off two of them before Grace caught up to it and kicked it next. It sailed in between the meteors and chaos, finding contact with another two before Haru caught it in his hands.

They looked back at the four Gray Graces that had been hit with the code. They fumbled around, as if lost, before a puff of smoke erupted from them. They sported new appearances – chibi versions of Grace that held her distinctive cheerfulness.

“Yosh, it worked!” Haru celebrated, dodging more enemies before kicking the ball right at one.

The ball bounced off and was caught by one of the mini-Graces, who passed it toward another enemy. Haru stopped as the meteor shower ended, gawking at how each newly converted fake became a new player that pinballed the code into their enemies. The ball chained between each link faster and faster, until it became hard to follow.

“Geez, for once, I have to admit that AI makes the work so much easier.”

They had started the initial seed, which had spread rapidly through the ranks of the fakes. And as each one was converted, more popped up, only to be surrounded and pegged by the code soon after. Given this, it didn’t matter if AI copies of Grace were endlessly created. Grace would end up taking control of them all.

“Now, all that’s left is to download you off this server and set you free.”

Freedom. Grace wondered what that was. It was an alluring concept, but Grace feared what would happen if she was no longer linked to anyone. However, Haru’s wide grin made her feel hopeful of its prospect.

“But before you do that, I need to tell you something, Haru. About Samukawa, he’s the one that-”

Suddenly, Haru felt himself pulled away from her. In a blink, Grace was a speck in the distance as he was dragged through a tunnel of darkness. Before he knew it, someone was shaking him awake.

“Who the hell are you?! What are you doing with that?!”

Immediately, Haru popped up and backpedaled to the corner. The staff had returned after the fire alarm was reset, and they had found him lying there.

“Megu, you there?” Haru whispered.

“I tried to warn you, but you were out like a light. Anyways, are we clear?”

“Yeah, pull her out now!”

An agency member approached him, aiming to snatch the headset that he still had connected to the computer, but Haru stopped him.

“You may not want to pull the plug on that yet.”

That didn’t stop the agent for more than a second, so Haru stepped in between and said again with confidence.

“As a researcher directly involved with Project Grace, I highly recommend that you hold off.” Haru looked away and said in a smaller voice, “Megu, how long do you need?”

“3 minutes and 25 seconds.”

Haru sighed. “Hope you actually have that bail handy.”

As the agent came forward to restrain Haru, he pulled off the headset and tossed it behind him before ducking back and firing a foot to the man’s shin. While he flinched in pain, Haru pulled out a rolling chair and took a page from the Yama Ryu by swinging it forward. The legs smacked the man in the head, sending him backwards.

Immediately, the other agents moved forward to restrain him.

Haru found a box on the floor, which he lined up a kick that sent it flying right into the face of a surprised agent and flooring him. A tackle tried to pin him to the nearby desk, but he hopped right over it before grabbing a pot of lukewarm coffee and splashing it in his face. With his eyes closed to block it out, a quick swing of the pot knocked him out. His body fell forward, sprawled across the desk.

The coffee pot fell, but a foot came up to launch it into the face of another agent. He crumpled against the wall, clutching his face before pointing to the remaining two to act before crawling out of the room. One of them left as well, presumably to return with backup. The other spread his arms out, like he was ready to receive an attack. He was obviously buying time, but so was Haru.

Several objects of reasonable size littered the ground, which Haru kicked forward sequentially. The agent stared each down before slapping them all away. One final strike of a potted plant sent hard ceramic flying dangerously forward. The agent crossed his arms to protect his face, feeling the pot smack against his wrists.

But as he opened them to see, a follow-up attack filled his sights. Haru had done a flying knee, smashing his face and flooring him instantly. Seeing that the room was now clear, Haru dashed back to the headset, putting it on before seeing that 60 seconds remained.

“You alright there, bucko?” Megu chimed in, the noise of keystrokes as loud as his voice.

“I managed, but my prospects look dim. How’s it looking over there?”

“Grace is out. You can unplug. But you’ll have to keep her safe until she gets uploaded.”

“30 seconds? That’s a- ghhhhaahahhhhHH!”

“Haru?”

A painful shock coursed through Haru’s back as he struggled to turn himself around. The way his body locked up in an instant told him that an agent had struck with a taser.

Haru stiff-armed the computer desk to push himself away, just enough for the contact weapon to fall out of reach. He took a deep breath as he rolled to the side, bobbling to return upright, but finding himself too unsteady to get back on his feet. He instinctively covered his headset and ducked under a desk to buy precious seconds.

“You have nowhere to run!”

Haru eyerolled at the obvious, sinking deeper and deeper from their reaches. It was a pathetic way to end the confrontation, but he would do anything for Grace. A countdown starting from ten started on his lips.

At eight, the desks were ripped up above him, angry agents reaching down with more tasers. Haru kicked at their shins, but he lacked leverage to even cause them to flinch. Another taser dropped down, causing his teeth to chatter from the pain. Yet, he refused to lose count.

At five, a hand tried to grab his headset, but Haru rolled back and trapped the arm between his legs. He inched back slowly, keeping his head just out of reach.

At two, a hand finally grabbed him by the neck, trapping the air in his lungs. He could do nothing else but tap his lips for the final two counts before grinning like a madman as the upload meter finally reached full.

Bon voyage, Grace. Give them hell.