AI buster

.hack//AI buster is a novel, released in the U.S. by Tokyopop, that follows the story of system administrator Albireo and his encounter with the Vagrant AI Lycoris.

Lycoris' first appearance
Albireo, on a routine round of debugging, received a tip from an inactive account (later debunked as Morganna hacking the account) about the whereabouts of a Vagrant AI named Lycoris. As he and the Cobalt Knights corner her in Δ Hidden Forbidden Holy Ground, she escapes deletion by segmenting herself into five segments. Perhaps driven by his first failure, Albireo pursues Lycoris as if his life depended on it.

Invasion
On another tip from a different Morganna-hacked account, Albireo investigates a field alone on another Vagrant AI chase. There he reencounters Lycoris, and takes her to the Gott Statue as per her request and thus receives the first Lycoris segment eciov.cyl. After Alberio gives her eciov.cyl, Lycoris regains her ability to speak and suddenly transports them directly from the Gott Statue to Albireo's apartment in Mac Anu. Here, the monthly monster invasion forces him to meet, and against his will befriend, Hokuto. Because of another request from Lycoris, he defeats the boss monster and receives rae.cyl. Upon receiving rae.cyl, Lycoris can now apparently hear and understand what Albireo says. Not long afterwards, Orca and Balmung visit Albireo to ask for his aid in their defeat of The One Sin. He politely declines, telling them that he is currently in the middle of an event (referring to Lycoris). Before leaving, Balmung inquires about Albireo's weapon, the Divine Spear of Wotan, and Albireo informs them it is an item from Fragment. After they leave, Albireo attempts to log out, but is inable, due to Lycoris wanting him to stay in order to help her.

The One Sin
The next day, Balmung and Orca fight The One Sin, a monster with well over 60,000 HP with spells and skills of all elements, in Omega Server. Albireo and Hokuto witness their triumph in an icy field (after Hokuto ran off and was killed by a common monster). Later, Hokuto, under the moniker W.B. Yates, names them eternally as the Descendants of Fianna in a BBS posting. After the fray, Lycoris tells Albireo to find her feather, and when he does he receives eye.cyl, which brings him to the realization that the file names are simply backwards. Just as he thought, when Lycoris was given eye.cyl her eyes finally opened. Again, Lycoris transports everyone (including Hokuto) to another field.

Deletion
In this new field Lycoris tells Albireo to follow him as she runs off into the distance. She finally stops when she reaches a Spring of Myst and she purposely falls in. Although Hokuto is quite concerned, Albireo remains calm and when a Water Sprite asks him what he dropped he selects "Neither" and immediately receives yromem.cyl. With Lycoris' memory in his possession he quickly takes her and Hokuto to the place where they first met, Δ Hidden Forbidden Holy Ground. Once there, Albireo gives Lycoris her memory, and tries to delete her. Lycoris, impaled on the end of Albireo's spear, tells him about AI Harald and Morganna Mode Gone, then gives Albireo the last piece of her through his spear and deletes herself. The file she gave him was etaf.cyl.

Cast

 * Albireo / Kazushi Watarai
 * Hokuto
 * Lycoris
 * Orca
 * Balmung
 * Saki Shibayama
 * AI Harald
 * Morganna Mode Gone

Trivia

 * The unnamed subordinate of Kazushi Watarai is actually Saki Shibayama; the Tokyopop translation had unfortunately referred to her as a man throughout the novel.