Glimmering Wings
By pegasis23/Isabel Sparkle
Chapter 1: Impossible!
Many Months after waking up
Raven, or rather, Nagisa Tomoe sat in a packed café, her mind wandering off while she idly sipped her tea. She hasn't gotten over the fact that Kirito had died, or that the ordeal of Sword Art Online was finally over.
"Nagi-chan….. Hey? Earth to Nagisa-chan?" A girl with ginger hair asked, waving her hand in front of Nagisa's eyes, trying to get her attention.
"Ah? Naomi-chan?" Nagisa snapped out of her daze and fixated her gaze on Naomi.
"W-What are you doing here?!" Nagisa had been carefully avoiding her friends in school but her efforts of staying incognito was in vain.
"Not much. Just to exchange this game." Naomi gestured to a game disc, which had the words 'ALFheim Online' inscribed on it.
"Turns out Levi-kun isn't in to any these kind of games, so I'm returning it." Naomi shrugged as she tucked the disc back into her bag.
"I doubt Levi-kun would like video games at all, after what happened a few months ago." Nagisa sighed, shaking her head at Naomi's constant attempts to get her brother, Levi, to play video games.
"That has been many months ago, Nagisa. Everyone has moved on from that silly, old game." Naomi rolled her eyes at Nagisa.
"'Silly, old game'? Do you know how many innocent lives were taken because of that 'silly,old game'?! People, who had their entire lives ahead of them, was cut short of their lives because of it!" It was the trigger for Nagisa, and she blew up, shocking Naomi.
"Nagisa-chan…." Naomi murmured in shock as Nagisa raggedly drew her breath in, tears pooling in her eyes.
"I lost him to that stupid game… I only wished for him to live… Even if it meant me dying…." The raven haired girl buried her face in the shoulder of the ginger haired girl, who allowed her best friend to sob it out.
"I wish it was me who died instead of him…" Nagisa whimpered as Naomi led her away from the staring onlookers.
"There, there now…." Naomi said softly, once she had led them into an alley so that they would not be disturbed or stared at," Let it all out."
Nagisa allowed her swallowed tears rise to the surface.
Naomi sighed. She wished that there was another way to help Nagisa, something to distract her with so that she would get over SAO.
Before Naomi knew it, the words spilled forth from her lips," Hey, wanna play a game?"
"Link Start!" Nagisa commanded and colours streamed into her vision as she dived into the game.
'Just like last time….' Nagisa thought with a pang of melancholy, remembering of how she entered the world of SAO and fell in love.
She had taken Naomi up on playing ALFheim Online, using it as a sort of distraction from her heartbreak.
"Welcome to ALFheim Online!" A female voice greeted her as Nagisa found herself in a room.
"Please enter your gender and character name." The voice continued.
Entering her name as 'Female' and her old name, 'Raven', Nagisa chose the Imp race, taking a liking to its purple scheme and statistics.
"Imp, correct?" The voice asked as her character struck a pose.
"Oh, no. It's human." Nagisa said sarcastically, but she pressed the button to reaffirm her choice anyway.
"You will now be teleported to your hometown in Imp territory." The voice spoke and before she knew it, Nagisa found herself falling.
"ARGHHHHHHHHH!" Nagisa screamed as she fell to the ground, seeing that the ground was coming to meet her face, which would be pulverized into Imp Preservatives if she did not take action soon.
As she screamed, her hair had turned purple and elongated, with a slight purple tinge in her now milky white skin, which was somewhat tanned in the real world. Her ears turned pointed and her eyes had also changed into a mix of black and purple.
"Wha- Oh NOOOOOOOO!" Nagisa frowned, puzzled as her vision of the village below fizzled and she landed face first in front of a girl clad in green.
"O-Ow…. My nose…." She muttered, rubbing her face, as if it had dirt on it.
Nagisa's ears rang as she tried to regain her bearings.
"What's with people falling out of the sky nowadays?" Nagisa heard the girl mutter.
"Be careful for what you wish for…. A brick might come falling down on me." Raven groaned as she sat up immediately to see a man in red and another guy in black falling on top of her.
"Jesus Christ!" Raven yelled as she fell once again, this time, a Spriggan fell across her abdomen.
"Okay, I'm sorry! I take it back! Damn, this dude is heavy!" Raven huffed, trying to shove him off her body.
"What are you, a bunch of bricks and no brains? Get off of me!" Nagisa smacked the head of the Spriggan, flushed at how close the two of them were.
"Ow!" He yelped, getting up, while putting the pieces together on why he had such a soft landing.
He got off, rubbing his head, while muttering about working on his landings.
"Oh, am I interrupting something? Or- What the hell are you two doing? Get out of here!" The girl in green exclaimed, interrupting Nagisa.
"Would someone tell me why three big guys are fighting one single girl? It's pretty uncool if you ask me." The Spriggan spoke as he recovered quickly.
"Well, I'd be too happy to even things out, if this is the case." Nagisa said as she recovered and leapt back to her feet.
"What did you say?"
"Get your asses out of here noobs, and fast!"
Unsheathing her mauve blade, Nagisa readied herself for a fight.
"That's it, you asked for it!" One of the flying men swooped down to impale the Imp and take out the Spriggan, but the blow never made contact as Nagisa reacted on instinct, bringing her sword up, deflecting the hit and blowing him back.
He slammed into his comrade and they fell to the ground, seemingly unconscious.
"I didn't ask for anything, but now that you mention it, I ask that you leave her alone." Nagisa said icily.
The two of them recovered rather quickly, and the two got back up.
"Hate to interrupt, but you mind if I take care of this?" The Spriggan asked the two girls.
"And let you have all the fun? No way." Raven found herself replying rather flirtatiously.
"Um, I guess if you really want to. It's not like they're gonna let you guys walk out here alive anyway." The girl seemed to say in resignation.
"Alright, if you would excuse us." He said as Nagisa took her position.
Charging together as if they had fought together for years, the fairy in black brought his blade across the middle of the man who had attacked Nagisa and she stabbed another with her own, driving it in as deep as she could and punching him in between the legs.
They disappeared into orbs of light, where it flickered like flames.
"Who's next?" The Spriggan asked with a grin.
"No one. I took him out." Nagisa said, gesturing to the flames that used to be her foe.
"Well, do you want to fight too?" He turned to the man who was stilling hovering.
"Nah, my magic skill is about to hit 900. I don't want to have a death penalty now." He shook his head.
"What about you, Miss?" He turned to the green girl, who declined as well.
"I guess I'll pass too. But next time, victory will be mine." The girl gave a fierce glare at the man.
"Oh. Then next time, I'll bring more friends along." The man said ominously, before flying away.
"And you?" He turned to Nagisa, who shook her head.
"Nope, but remind me not to get on your bad side." Nagisa added.
"You got it." The Spriggan grinned at her. It was so familiar, just like how Kirito used to smile whenever she managed to kill a monster on her own back in SAO. A pang of melancholy slammed into her, but she held it together.
"What are these things, anyway?" Nagisa asked.
"Shh! Those are Remain Lights. The players you killed can still hear you." The Slyph said in a hushed voice.
After a few seconds, they disappeared.
"Okay, now we can talk. So, what do you want? You want me to thank you? Run away? Or do you wanna fight?" The Sylph brandished her kantana.
"Jeez, you're that slow?" Nagisa said, getting behind the green fairy and tapping her head a few times.
"We just saved you from a bunch of idiots and now you want us to kill you?" She asked in disbelief," Does that even make sense?"
"If we break down what just happened, it's one of those 'Knight saves the Princess' moments." The boy in black said, crossing his arms.
"Huh?" The girl seemed confused.
"Ah, very nice. I've turned into a lesbian." Nagisa said, deadpanned.
"You get the point." The Spriggan snapped at Nagisa.
"But for starters, you could burst into tears and throw your arms around me." He turned to the Sylph.
"Oh, piss off, loser!" She exclaimed.
"Nah, I was just kidding." The Spriggan chuckled slightly at this.
"No way! I won't let you do that!" A small voice from the boy spoke up.
"What? Stay out of sight!" He yelped as a small pixie darted out of his pockets.
"Mommy and I are the only ones allowed to hug Daddy." She said protectively, hugging the ear of the Spriggan.
"Daddy?" Nagisa nearly doubled over in laughter as she saw the look on the other girl's and the boy's face.
The boy stuttered as he wrapped his hands around the pixie, trying to shove her back into his pocket.
"No way, is that a Private Pixie?" The Sylph seemed surprised by this.
"Y-Yeah, something like that." He answered sheepishly.
"Then, how about you'd tell me what is a Spriggan and an Imp doing here?" She asked.
"I- We got lost." Nagisa said, with an expressionless look on her face.
The girl stayed quiet for a moment, before bursting into hysterical laughter.
"How could you two get so lost? Spriggan Territory is way over at the east, and the Imp Territory is at North West! God, you guys are so weird!" She laughed.
Sheathing her kantana, Nagisa followed suit, keeping away her sword now that they were well away from danger.
"Anyway, thank you for saving me. I guess I should introduce myself. I'm Leafa. Nice to meet you." The girl, or rather, Leafa introduced herself.
"I'm Kirito, and this is Yui." Nagisa nearly fell over when she heard the name.
The very name of the boy she fell in love with, and the name of the boy whom had died in front of her eyes.