In the Case of Mai Minase

In the Case of Mai Minase is the first episode of .hack//Liminality.

Story
Sometime after Orca falls comatose during the events of Infection, Tomonari Kasumi invites his new girlfriend, Mai Minase, to play The World. While playing at Θ Chosen Hopeless Nothingness, Mai hears A in C major as Skeith appears and Data Drains both players, causing Tomonari to fall comatose and Mai to fall temporarily unconscious. Masaya Makino finds them knocked out as his father, a doctor, comes to pick them up. At the hospital, Mai opens her eyes and repeats the A in C major note.

Soon after she recovers, Masaya spots her near a river. When Masaya asks, Mai admits she is skipping school. As Masaya escorts her home, she reminisces of her play in The World and decides to return to school the following day. Her father calls to tell her she will not be seeing him soon.

While dealing with her classmates and her impulsive mother, she's contacted by Junichiro Tokuoka, who insists on her telling him everything that happened that day with Tomonati Kasumi. After a brief investigation she learns that he is a former CC Corp employee. After a lot of meetings she accepts to recreate the circumstances in which Tomonari went comatose. Mai and Tokuoka break into her school and the same club house in which they played The World for the last time. While Tokuoka leads the party, Mai helps him using her fine tuned violinist ear to detect Skeith. As the battle went on Tokuoka started drooling and presenting convulsions in front of a panicked Mai who helps him snap out of it. They are finally helped getting out of the club house by Masaya after their victory making Tokuoka wake up.

Trivia

 * As Skeith's wand in-game changes its SIGN version for the US release, so does the one in Liminality, changing models and turning from 3D to hand-drawn.