Life was hard when you're alone.

Fortunately for the protagonists of this story, they can be alone together.

After being shunned by society, the two of them stood together and fought back. Making a name for themselves in the world of games, yet online fame can only go so far when you're only known as a blank space.

In the end, those who see them in their state of perpetual self-pity can only ask: "Was is it society that had cast them off or was it they that had cast off society?"

Despite having enough intellect to question the gods, the two never bothered to ask such a question. Knowing full well that it was not a question they could answer sincerely.

To begin this reforged tale, we simply begin at where it starts; and where it all starts is with one trip to the convenience store.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Tchh......to run out of food in the middle of an ongoing event, the gods must have cursed us..."

A man of around eighteen-years of age contemplated as he crudely walked along the streets of Modern Japan at around 5 A.M. Walking beside him was a strange young girl whose white hair was bound to attract attention in a crowd. Thankfully for both of them not many people had a hobby of wandering the streets this early in the morning and thus, kept their exposure to minimum as both of them hated unnecessary encounters with other people.

"Nii,....you actually believe in gods?"

"Mmm? Of course I do!"

The man said with a clearly exaggerated tone while the little girl's face barely moved at all at his foolish demeanor.

"Who are these two people?", you might be asking. These two are the urban legends that go by the name of 'blank'. The lolicon with the clearly annoyed face is Sora while the loli on his left should be his step-sister Shiro.

After having their internet connection cut they were forced to evacuate home base to do their groceries to which up to now, was completely obtained from online shipping. Seeing how they were about to die from starvation, they went to a nearby convenience store to buy some instant noodles.

The both of them seemed pleased after seeing that besides the woman behind the cash register, there was no one inside besides them. The two of them really weren't good at handling other people in terms of friendly socializing.

"Oi, Shiro. By any chance do you happen to bring extra money?"

"............."

The white-haired girl continued to stare at him while he stared back at her.

"......is that a "no"?"

To which the girl quickly replied with a quick nod.

"Then how in the world are we going to pay for all of this?!"

"If its you, you can do it!"

The girl raised a thumbs up before her older brother immediately emptied the basket which was at the time, overflowing with unnecessarily expensive food.

"A NEET has no time for this kind of foods!"

Sora proudly said as he continued to dump out anything that didn't have the word "instant" or wasn't on sale.

".....It's because nii doesn't have a job...."

"Well maybe if you study you can someday get a job!"

"................."

"................."

That conversation always ends with such. Both sides refusing to give in to the other despite having the same end goal for each other. Life would probably treat them a lot harsher in the near future specially when their funds start to take a dip. Both of them knew the precarious situation both of them were heading to yet none of them ever considered taking action.

"Damn, a few hundred short."

After rummaging through his purse for the fourth time, he still couldn't make money appear from thin air. He was 350 yen short of the bill due to Shiro having bought some cookies that she had been eyeing ever since they entered.

"Sir, you could just leave these cookies behind and you'll have 50 yen to spare."

The clerk calmly spoke yet her face told a different story. Before Sora would finally lessen their groceries, another girl had butted in.

"Oh, so your brother forgot to bring more money? Don't worry! This onee-chan has tons to spare. Excuse me miss, is this enough?"

"That's strange. I don't remember seeing her come in the store neither did I see her inside......shit......."

Before Sora was able to analyze the situation, he noticed the real-life beauty standing in front of him. Silver hair, blood red eyes, and a bright smile that could pierce right through his virgin heart.

"H-H-Hi...."

He internally sighed as he prepared himself to get mocked by the beauty in front of him. People were always like that. They might appear to be beautiful on the outside, but that only hides a rotten and over inflated ego that they keep deep inside.

Being the genius, self-taught psychologists that he was, reading other people was easier than reading a book to Sora. He only needed one look to know the other party's true personality. So when the other party turns to be a really pure person....

"......g-g-g-good morning....."

"......is he alright?"

"Un,...nii is just hanging..."

"Like a computer?!"

The silver-haired girl stood there in awe trying to figure out the weird duo in front of her before the man who was around her age had finally snapped and fell to the ground.

"Well, I should be going now...."

The girl inched a bit further from the scene that was happening in front of her. At around that time Sora had finally recovered and again caught sight of the girl.

"Anyway, my name's Sh-...I mean Kaira. Until next time!"

She gave a bright smile at the two while Sora became rather disappointed. Not being able to talk to the kind, 3-D girl that was in front of him.

Seeing the disappointed look at Sora's face, the girl leaned next to him and whispered: "Don't worry, Sora, we'll meet again soon. After all, you still owe me money!"

On the way home, Sora was in deep thought about the things that have happened earlier.

One. There was a kind girl(cute) that talked to a loner, virgin NEET like him.

Two. Said girl(cute) was willing to give him free food.

Three. Girl(cute) knew his name.

Forget the first two but the last one really stuck to him. Was she a stalker? An old classmate? A relative?

No. Shiro would have remembered her face if they have met at least once.

Was it possible that the girl did not know about Shiro yet had knew about Sora?

Such thoughts circled through his mind through their journey back to their house. While Shiro, despite having complete knowledge over the situation did not bother to think of it one bit.

Having finally noticed this, he had called this out to her.

"Oi, aren't you concerned about that strange girl(cute) from before?!"

"....why?..."

"Our identity as [   ] might be leaked!"

".....I highly doubt that..."

She said with a rather even more uncaring voice than usual.

"Oi, oi, oi, has that Kaira already swooned you over her side with a bag of cookies!?"

"Mm....I feel like, I could trust her..."

"Geez...there we go again. It doesn't mean that she's beautiful-..."

"....I never said that she was beautiful, though...."

".....That's besides the point!-"

"...Kaira seems to be in nii's strike zone.....even though she's clearly an adult..."

"Now you're just dodging the topic completely...."

She stopped for a moment to retort but the little loli continued walking without him.

Defeated, he decided to let go of the subject matter in hand and agree with himself that she was probably just an old classmate he had long past forgotten.

Around 24 hours later the existence of Kaira was indeed, nothing more than a fleeting memory for the two siblings. None of them would bring up the situation as they were far too busy in playing games. Thus, Sora was able to completely disregard the mystery that was Kaira.They even decided to disregard the matter of Shiro losing one of her phones. This wasn't really that much of a problem since their phones were programmed to reboot if someone enters the wrong password thrice.

At least, that was the plan.

*Ring*

"Hmm? A phone call?"

Despite taking full notice of the call, Sora continued to play two separate characters using two consoles using one hand each. It was Shiro decided to abandon her role and searched for the ringing phone.

"...nii, isn't this your personal phone...?"

"I can already tell that from the ringtone. Just leave it be and come back here! I really, really, really need a healer and a mage this time around! Oi......what are you doing......"

"nii....there's a message...."

"Probably just spam or a wrong send just leave it.........Ah! Finally done with that fucking cheater. Hmmm? You've been staring at the phone for a long time now. Just let me see."

Maybe it was the sequence of events that had occurred, but that girl they had meet a day ago was getting more mysterious as time goes by and she hasn't even done anything weird yet.

-Good Morning [  ],

I would like to ask for the two of you two part take in an online experiment about games. Your output would be highly beneficial to me and my friend. We sincerely hope for a positive response. There will be a link directly e-mailed to you if you chose to agree.

                                                                                                                                                      With Love, 

                                                                                                                                                      Kaira-

Before he could even completely analyze the contents of the message, an e-mail notification cuts right through his focus. Before he could even open the e-mail another phone rang, and another, and another. It came to a point where it was probably more sensible to dismiss everything as a hallucination. Finally, Shiro answered one of the ringing phones and all the other quickly stopped.

She handed the phone to her brother who seems to be curious at what exactly was going on. At first it was just static but a familiar voice slowly emerged. A clear feminine voice that sounded exactly like the girl they met just a day ago. The girl that Sora knew was the cause of all this insanity. 

The one who calls herself, Kaira.

-"...i-....is this thing on? Hello...?"-

-"Who is this?"-

Sora decided to talk to her in an aggressive manner in hopes of trying to break through her 'nice' girl facade that she has been putting up. Yet, he just sounded like an old man pissed at a young girl scout for selling cookies.

-"Don't be like that. It's me, Kaira. Have you already forgotten about me? How sad. Anyway, I was just calling through this phone since your sister seems to have dropped it while you two were at the convenience store. Sorry for only calling now....I'm a really busy person, you see."-

-"Let me rephrase my question a bit. Who are you?"-

-"Mmm? Didn't a tell you earl-.."-

-"That's not what I'm asking."-

-"I see. Well, you'll find out. Sooner or later, but.....if you beat me at a game maybe I'll answer your questions. Three of them to be exact."-

-"Deal."-

-"Now, if you just click the link I e-mailed you....then we can proceed."-

She ended the line after that. 

Sora clicked his tongue and anger as he realized that he was dancing in the palm of her hands. Their meeting. The cookies. The messages. It was all to set up this game. Whatever that game was, he could tell that it something that would change their lives.

Whoever this "Kaira" was, Sora was curious. He had an exaggerated smile on his face as he collected his thoughts for a moment. For the first time in his entire life, he was played. Something not even adults could do even when he was just a child. Yet, some random, ditzy girl(cute) had humiliated him. 

That bright smile she wore when greeting them, that playful attitude she had used to get close to them, even her pure-hearted kindness that won Shiro over. He wanted to dismiss those actions as nothing more than an act to weaken their hearts and that she was a villain wanting to ruin [   ] for some unknown reason, yet he could not see her as such a person for some strange reason. 

And that.

That was what scares him the most.

[Words you might not understand]
NEET=Not In-Education-Employment-Training (basically a shut-in)

Un= (more of a sound rather than a word) means "Yes"

Oi= An informal way of calling someone's attention.

Nii= An informal way of calling your older brother in Japan.

-"Sample"- = These lines were said over the phone.

[A/N

Hi, readers.

So, this is the first remake chapter out of the many that I would be doing. I decided to cut it short since I'm still figuring out how to do the world transition for the story. I want to put Tet more into the series. If you have any more ideas or scenes you want to see, please tell me about it in the comments or a private message.

   If you have any more ideas or scenes you want to see, please tell me about it in the comments or a private message.  

]