What do you do when a game starts playing by its own rules? Shugo and Reina only recently started playing The World, the most advanced online game ever created, but they are already well on their way to becoming heroes. They've got a great party of friends, cool new items, and now they've been joined by Zefie, a Vagrant AI who acts outside the rules of the game. As intelligent as Zefie may be, the CC Corporation isn't about to let an unstable element run free in The World -- not after what happened four years ago. So with the notorious debugging team, The Cobalt Knights, on the prowl, Shugo and company had better watch out!

Shugo
14-year-old Shugo always assumed RPG's were overly complicated games that someone like him could never understand. When his sister invites him to play the mega-popular MMORPG 'The World,' Shugo is instantly hooked. Inside 'The World,' Shugo plays as the avatar 'Kite,' one of the legendary .hackers. After a rough start, he and his sister find themselves on a quest to save 'The World.' As an adventurer Shugo is impulsive and inexperienced, but he makes up for it with his heart.

Rena
Shugo's twin sister, Rena won the 'avatars' of the legendary .hackers which she and her brother now use inside the MMORPG 'The World.' She plays as 'Black Rose,' and unlike her brother, she picks up on the nuances of online gaming pretty quickly.

Tatsuya Hamazaki is the author of several Gundam manga, as well as the several One Piece novelizations. .hack//LEGEND OF THE TWILIGHT marks his first collaboration with artist Rei Izumi.

Rei Izumi is the artist of .hack//LEGEND OF THE TWILIGHT, currently serialized in Kadokawa's 'Computeek' magazine.