Elk

Orders? No, I'm only offering it as... a suggestion.
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Character Profile
Online
Name	Elk
Gender	Male
Class	Wavemaster
Media Information
Japanese Voice	Mitsuki Saiga
English Voice	Brianne Siddall
First Appearance	.hack//Infection
Offline
Name	Kaoru Ichinose
Age	13
Gender	Male

"I’m not very good at telling people how I feel… and I'm always worried about how other people perceived me… I didn’t like that, and wanted to change and came to “The World”, but I was unable to change."

— Elk —

Elk (エルク) is a young Wavemaster, who looks much like Tsukasa from .hack//SIGN. He follows the cat player, Mia, around all the time and is close friends with her.

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Online

Appearance

Elk's PC is a young, blue-haired boy wearing dark blue robes. He almost always has a gloomy expression on his face. In terms of appearance, he is an almost identical twin of Tsukasa, the only difference being minute changes in their robes and hat, and a change in color scheme. (Tsukasa is mostly Grey and Red, Elk is Blue and Grey). Elk's face tattoo is also slightly different.

Personality

Elk is a rather insecure person online. He seems to have a lot of trouble trusting other players, and is always shocked when somebody is nice to him. The only person he seems to trust is Mia, who he is rarely seperated from. He can be downright mean to people if he feels they are trying to draw Mia's attention away from him.

Offline

Basic Info

Offline, Elk is Kaoru Ichinose (一ノ瀬薫), a thirteen-year-old middle school student who joined The World to make friends and attempt to change his shy and passive personality. He eventually went on to create the character Endrance.

History

Elk concept art.

.hack//Games

Elk was first introduced to Kite through Mia. Intrigued by the bracelet wielded by the newbie Twin Blade, Mia took it upon herself to teach Kite some of the various uses of the bracelet, namely the power of Gate Hacking. Jealous of the attention Kite was getting Elk tried to convince Kite to give up his bracelet, an offer that Kite refused. Concerned for Elk, Kite helped him patch up his relationship with Mia, forming an unsteady friendship between them.

Complications arose when Mia suddenly lost her ability to speak properly. Figuring it was a problem with her headset, Elk was able to ignore the problem and continued adventuring as normal. However, Mia's condition was more then just speech difficulties. As time went on she began exibiting strange behavior, and more disturbingly began to reveal gaps in her memory. Concerned Kite and Elk tried to help Mia, but found themselves only able to watch as she became more and more erratic. After a while, Elk found himself unable to contact Mia. Desperate, he spent hours searching The World for any trace of her to no avail, ignoring his other friends in favor of his search. At one point in his search he encountered Bear, who was surprised at his uncanny resembelance to the player Tsukasa.

Elk and Mia.

Concerned for Elk as well, Kite offered him a job as part of Helba's Anti-Wave operation. He was given part of a vaccine program designed to trap the Cursed Wave so that Kite and the rest of his party could fight it on their own terms. However, things began to spiral out of control when the Wave suddenly changed direction, moving directly towards Elk. Kite and his party raced to the bottom of the dungeon where Elk was located, only to find him with Mia at the bottom. To Elk's shock and horror, Mia revealed that she had no existence outside of the system, she was nothing more then a program inside of The World. She suddenly began to transform, revealing her true form, that of Macha the Temptress, Phase Six of the Cursed Wave. Using her powers to teleport Elk away, Macha began fighting against Kite.

Rushing back to the dungeon, Elk arrived in time to see Kite deliver the final blow. As he watched, Macha was destroyed by Kite's Bracelet, temporarily transforming back into Mia. Though he attempted to save her, it proved futile, and he could only watch as Mia faded away in front of him. Furious he blamed Kite for Mia's death, and ran away taking his part of the vaccine with him. It is suggested that he joins Morganna, giving her the virus Helba had created, (it is suggested that Elk was fooled into believing that Morganna would bring Mia back to him). Upon receiving the vaccine, Morganna created a virus that allowed her to data drain the vaccine and spread its effects to the whole of Lios's team, causing them to immediatly fall into comas.

Despite what he had done, Elk continued to watch Kite from a distance and was present in Net Slum when it was attacked by Corbenik the Rebirth the Eighth Phase of the Wave. He watched from a safe distance as Kite and the rest of the .hackers fought a desperate battle against the Phase. Just when it seemed that victory was at hand, Corbenik released its ultimate attack, Drain Heart which began to take out the combatants one by one. Watching as the attack flew towards Kite, Elk had a sudden change of heart. Leaping in front of Kite, he took the blast instead. His final words before falling comatose were an apology for his selfish actions. Using the opportunity Elk had given him, Kite rushed towards Corbenik in a last ditch final attack, which resulted in the destruction of the Phase, and the Cursed Wave as well. Through his efforts, Elk had managed to secure a victory over Morganna and caused the birth of Aura the Ultimate AI.

Soon afterwards Elk and Kite both received an e-mail from Aura listing the location of a dungeon. They traveled together to the bottom of the dungeon where they were confronted by Macha who fought against them using a powerful Twilight Guardian. Victorious, Elk watched as Macha transformed back into Mia, reuniting him with the friend he had thought lost forever. Though she lacked any memories of Kite and everything related to the entire incident, Elk promised that they would make new memories for her together.

Elk as he appears in Unison

.hack//Another Birth

Elk appeared briefly in the first volume of Another Birth. He approached Kite, BlackRose, and Natsume when they were preparing to go adventuring and dragged Kite away to go see Mia. This forced an unhappy BlackRose to entertain Natsume by herself.

In volume 2 of Another Birth, Elk ventured with Kite and Blackrose to fight Innis at Λ Resurrecting, Confused, Judgment. To Blackrose's surprise, Elk didn't seem frightened when they fought Innis. He was worried about Mia at the time because she wasn't online.

.hack//Unison

In Unison, Elk and Mia both travel to a bar located in Carmina Gadelica, there Elk is introduced to Tsukasa for the first time, and watches as he reunites with Mia (who he knew as Macha the cat). Later the pair travel to Net-Slum where they join a party hosted by Helba. Elk and Mia dance with each other as fireworks light up the sky.

Elk in .hack//GIFT.

.hack//GIFT

Elk appears briefly in GIFT, where Mia forces him to make out with her in a field of flowers.

.hack//G.U.

See Endrance

Trivia

• Elk first joins Kite right after the Δ Boundless Corrupted Fort Walls mission at level 3 with a level 1 weapon called Nautilus Wand.
• Elk's Japanese voice actor Mitsuki Saiga also does the voices of Tsukasa and Endrance.
• His English voice actor Brianne Siddall also voiced Tsukasa.
• Elk has a fixation with the item aromatic grass, stemming off of his friendship with Mia.

Elk's Mission Areas

• Infection:
  • Δ Closed Oblivious Twin Hills: Mia wants to see the Bracelet in action, so she invites Kite to a data bug run and Elk tags along behind.
  • Δ Plentious Smiling Hypha: What Elk does when he is jealous.
• Mutation:
  • Λ Dolorous Evil Eyed Widow: Elk wants to help Mia's speech impairment, so he and Mia drag Kite into another mission.
• Quarantine:
  • Ω Hidden Darkside Holyground: Aura sends a mysterious e-mail to Kite and Elk. A strange force has gathered within the 15 floor dungeon that'll end with a heart-stopping reunion.

Kite's party members.
Balmung	BlackRose	Elk	Gardenia	Helba
Marlo	Mia	Mistral	Moonstone	Natsume
Nuke Usagimaru	Orca	Piros	Rachel	Sanjuro
Sora	Subaru	Tsukasa	Terajima Ryoko	Wiseman