Welcome to The World, the most advanced online game ever created. In The World you can be anyone you want to be, act out your adventure fantasies and through teamwork and determination, you can even become a hero!

AI buster, the prequel to .hack//SIGN, is the story of Albireo,a debugger, who used to play 'Fragments,' the beta version of 'The World.'

Albireo encounters Lycoris, whom he assumes is an event NPC (an AI character) but she's actually a failed version of Aura. She is blind, deaf, and mute, because Albireo debugged her and broke up important files. The missing files are hidden as items in the World, and when returned to Lycoris, she gets a function back. When she gains them all, she changes into a teenage form with purple hair who looks like Aura. Because of his acquaintance with Lycoris, Albireo cannot log out of the game and exit the World ...

Writer Tatsuya Hamazaki is the writer of several Gundam manga, as well as the author of several One Piece novelizations.

English Version By: Stormcrow Hayes

Albireo
A debugger and the main character. He is also Watarai and the Captain.

Balmung
Balmung a legendary player that is known all over the World. The wings were part of a mod he obtained during .hack//AI BUSTER. He was one of two players that destroyed the One Sin, during the "One Sin avent".

Lycoris
She is deaf, blind, and mute.

Orca
Orca: Like Balmung, Orca is a lengendary player. In the video game series, he is Kite's classmate that convinces him to play, "The World".