Magia Sumire

Early in her life, Leila was the definition of the perfect child. She breezed through tests, had an active social life and had felt completely and utterly empty at all of it. She had no real ambitions, no plans for the future and was just going with what her parents laid out. She would graduate, get a degree in Law or Economics, get a stable job live a normal life.

That was, until she discovered TerraSphere. The game offered her something that she couldn't get anywhere else, freedom to try, fail and experiment. Instead of constantly going for the safe path out of fear that she would ruin her life irreparably for one reason or another, she had true freedom and abilities that defined the rules of her real life. It was intoxicating, and she couldn't get enough of it. Her parents might have thought that Leila getting into VR gaming was odd, but they were just relieved that she had seemingly found a normal hobby instead of just staring blankly into space.

It was shortly after she started playing the illegal game that she met Ayame. The girl was like the sister she never had and life was just a lot more enjoyable when the two of them were together. Given how often their tastes overlapped, she decided to let Ayame in on TerraSphere, thinking her friend would enjoy it as much as she had. This came to be her biggest regret.

The two of them partnered up for her first few weeks in-game but eventually conflicting schedules drifted apart. Over time, she noticed that Ayame started to be more, and more reckless. This behavior eventually culminated her best friend's death and when they found out she was stuck, an argument erupted.

High on emotions, the two of them fought viciously before Leila decided she had enough and quit out. Too angry and guilty to log back in and make amends, she avoided the game for a few days. By the time she mustered up the words and courage to return, TerraSphere had went dark.

The next few years were hard on Leila. She went from the top of her class to the bottom and became known as a recluse. The timing of the announcement of TerraSphere closing, sudden death of a classmate and Leila's odd behavior painted a pretty clear picture of what had happened.

After a lot of soul searching and arguments, Leila managed get her life back on track to a reasonable degree. Taking a gap year in university to travel the world, she decided to head to Japan and try and learn about the place her friend had been from. It was during her vacation that she heard whispers of TerraSphere returning, and made the decision to try and find Ayame.

Her apology was long overdue.