Fay Fugue Waltz Rebound
A ALfheim Online take-off
With appreciations to the creativity of Reki Kawahara
By Fictioneer
This story, though K-rated, involves a pairing departure of main characters not favored by canon readers. If the premise rubs you the wrong way just turn to another page. Though this story touches all main and side stories and games of the SAO universe, it's not necessary to be familiar with them. As an anime newbie I welcome constructive critiques but be aware that my forte is a CPA, not fiction writing.
-o-o-O-o-o-
In one moment Kirito was racing to keep ahead of Leafa's mad supersonic dash in the crisp cerulean skies above the fluffy cotton sea of a cloud deck toward the monstrously looming World Tree and glittering Yggdrasil City at its crown when suddenly there was a flash that Kirito at first took for lightning except it seemed to happen everywhere. Then the next second Leafa vanished and bewilderingly Kirito glanced around and spotted her tumbling far below him like a oak seed.
"Leafa!"
For several seconds Kirito paused. It wasn't like hyper-competitive speed-sadist Leafa to dump a race, on the other hand he wondered if this was a new tangent on their race, now a wild game of catch-the-leader. But she was tumbling out of control, her dragonfly-like wings vanished.
What the damn!
Instinctively Kirito dove after her through the cloud bank, wishing he'd radar in the thick blinding haze, and it was until he broke through below the ceiling that he spotted her, wingless and limbs flapping like a limp doll, swirling down as though caught in a whirlpool. Like a doomed plane or fatally clumsy skydiver, in an uncontrollable spin.
Geeze!
She's in real trouble!
He willed himself into increase speed to reach her, forcing himself to remember that there was no fatal result of an impact and that the sylph girl would just re-spawn in the grand hall in Swilvane which was hours away and mean the end of their hunt challenge for the night. Still, Leafa liked to ratchet up her default pain threshold a couple a notches to enhance the thrill of danger – a crazy notion she picked up from getting speared into a porcupine by arrows in the World Tree base while trying to save him from his first failed Asuna rescue attempt. But he doubted even sensible Suguha would dare the peril of being splattered on the ground just to test his knightly instincts and incur ALO's new "mortality demotion" option, wherein your injured character suffered permanent minus health points which could tally up to irretrievable character account deletion.
True absolute final character death.
Oddly enough, it was inspired by SAO survivors who found that the death game left them with an exhilaration and tingly taste for genuine danger absent other resurrection bail-out games, so ironically mortality demotion took off swimmingly among long time and veteran gamers whose long personal and momentary investment in their characters had the most to lose.
Anxious not to see Suguha's new replacement in-game incarnation if Leafa made a crater in the ground, Kirito surged on faster through the cutting air, catching up with Leafa who was wildly cart-wheeling wingless as though totally unconscious.
She's really not pretending...
Again Kirito wondered if she was pulling off a dramatic damsel-in-distress rescue game to help distract his angst and broken heart - she even sent Yui away on a bogus all-day errand to count everyone who sneezed in Alfheim because she longed true privacy with her onii-chan, but Suguha wasn't that girlie helpless nor kinky to tease her brother so, especially when it'd evoke a painful episode in her own life.
When I was blind to her feelings. And in blind denial myself.
But then Asuna was so dazzling why wouldn't I be?
Asuna!
His chest twitched with rueful regret.
It was wrong to feel betrayed or abandoned.
Such was the capricious anchor of young love.
He sensed Asuna starting to drift after his Alicization experience whose deep alternate life experiment left him subtly changed and sober, but the true heart-rifter was far more conventional.
A renown SAO survivor who made good, Tetsurō Osato was a debonair and some would say flamboyant prodigy and Japan's Geneva U.N.I.C.E.F. liaison who fell into the good graces of Asuna's socialite mother by offering Asuna a seasonal stint as a UN. Intern overseas. Since Kazuto was spending so much time far away on his odd career quest, Asuna reasoned what was good for the goose was good for the gander and Kirito grudging acceded, though he'd come to regret and say that Osato had sly designs embedding Asuna with a U.N.I.C.E.F. team touring the armpits and squalor of deep northern Africa, her AmuSphere lost with air baggage.
What Sugou Nobuyuki couldn't accomplish with threats of rape and brain tinkering to gain Asuna's 'cooperation' if not favor, what did was her witnessing firsthand tens of thousands of famished and destitute natives and their shriveled fleas-infested babies. Asuna's heart and maternal instincts were torn apart with appall and guilt of selfishly ignoring such real tangible mass misery by indulging the blissful escape of the virtual universe.
Suddenly, all of her VR adventures and plights were paled and fell insignificant as reality hammered home her mother's long pragmatic assertions. Never mind Kazuto was working to refine and develop VR applications to betterment of mankind, he simply couldn't match the regard and mission of a crusader devoted to bettering the plight of millions, and guilt-struck poor-little-rich-girl Asuna longed to be part of this soul-cleaning salvaging of humanity. And herself.
"But Asuna, doesn't all the time we had together, being one together in our cabin count for anything? Think of Yui!"
"Yui's just a clever piece of computer code, Kirito-san – not a real crying starving baby with flies all over its face! Please understand, I just can't live with myself going back to the selfish bliss of a fake universe when there's so such misery that I can help stop. That's why I've finally found my life calling, helping Osato heal the world – this world. Don't look so sad, Kirito-san. We'll always be friends."
His heart and life dropped like a meteor.
Just – 'friends'.
'Kirito-san'.
Meeting once every asteroid strike.
How can you fight her 'calling' without seeming a heartless inhumane selfish otaku? One who'd just be a lovely moth's excess baggage going along before Osato's dazzle and noble career path.
Asuna...
At Tokyo airport a tenuous final hug and waving her off on her mercy flight to Nigeria.
In self-flagellation, Kazuto was reminded of that ancient Japanese proverb;
Birds never nest in a bare tree...
A belt of turbulence thudded Kirito from his flash reverie and abashed he surged faster after the reeling girl. Kirito was whacked several times by her cart-wheeling head and heels several times before he managed to grab her by her slim waist and swiftly decelerated to a hover several hundred meters above the rocky crags.
"Wow! That was close!" he exclaimed.
Leafa felt only a few kilos in weight but was still every bit tangible to his senses, her lush plump right bosom mashed against his chest.
The last time I held Leafa like this was when...when...
Bad time.
Bad timing.
"Leafa!" he called, shaking her slightly then more firmly. "Leafa! Lyfa! Suguha!"
People don't fall unconscious in Alfheim. You can be sim-stunned or even rendered asleep by potions or spells but real unconsciousness was unknown. Such a state can only occurred by an external incident to one's actual physical brain and would incur an instant log-out.
Her cone-shell-like ears twitched like a cat's then her flaxen feathery eyelashes fluttered open from pellucid emerald orbs that gaped in wonder at the Spriggan a head's-breath over her.
Kirito grinned. "Hey, what happened, damsel! Dropped out of the race?"
Her creamy brow furrowed with a searching look that baby-like blinked anew at him and to his uneasy dismay he felt soft enchantment seep from the suppressed cockles of his heart and groin as his maverick libido admitted Leafa's elfin alien beauty with the safe detachment from her reality.
Kirito inward gulped from forbidden fascination.
It's all too easy to forget she's really Suguha on looks alone, but there're also subtler differences too imposed by Cardinal to spice up one's in-game character and persona, like how Leafa's more forward and cunning than Suguha, yet not as reserved in expressing her feelings like when just before she realized that I was really -
Freak!
Stop walking into it, guy!
"Hey, you okay - Suguha?" he stressed her reality to shrug off the witless uneasy enchantment.
"K - K - Kirito-kun?" she near-whispered in a odd waif-like wondering way.
"You alright? You took a real tumble there! What happened? Tripped on your wings?"
She blinked and blushed. "Uh, no. Sorry, Kirito-kun."
For a quizzical moment Kirito blinked aback at a omission.
What?
No onii-chan?
He frowned and looked down and was again struck by her soft admiring gaze and suddenly he became aware of muffled pounds beating his chest, her featherweight very uncomfortable in his arms and he was about to tell her to beat her wings so to ease her off when -
"Attention ALO gamers," boomed the voice of a Goddess from all over the sky. "Due unexpected spurious anomalies we're temporarily suspending service for emergency maintenance in one minute."
"One minute? It must really be serious!" Kirito said aloud, appreciating the interruption for once. "Might as well. Gotta do supper, right?"
She mustered a weak sheepish smile. "At Agil's?"
Huh?
Why'd she bring that up? Was she trying to avoid preparing supper - which was one of her favorite activities to better and longer socialize with him? Besides, even if I wanted to treat her out, it'd look awkward taking my sister out like that, especially so close after losing -
"Kidding? He'll charge an arm and a leg!" he chafed, gingering easing her soft firm length an arm's length away but her wings still weren't extended while a befuddled look passed her face.
"Something wrong, Leafa?"
"Huh?"
"You look puzzled." he said.
"Uh, I just..."
It suddenly occurred to him that she wasn't embarrassed by their closeness, than shy rather seemed to bask his support. With abashed dismay he wanted to let go of her trim waist, but with her not being in flight mode she'd drop again and that'd be rude. Why was she acting so demure and helpless keeping her wings stowed?
Geese, Suguha!
It wasn't like her to play coy games with him after her brutal double-whammies of crushed dreams and ripped hearts she suffered by a shock of twisted fate and passionate revelation during the Sugou Nobuyuki incident. So far Suguha seemed to've healed well since, keeping aloof and never mentioning that episode of high forbidden drama and embarrassment. Still, he could sense behind her smile and wistful glimpses a wild indelible hope, and with Asuna out of my life, maybe she's going to tease me to fan the embers. It's not like her to fib, but then, maybe she's just playing out what can never be.
Then, I didn't help matters being wishy-washy about how I felt about her and our future during our crazy cozy sky waltz..
Kirito was still pondering how to release her when the universe suddenly seemed to shrink into a black hole and he groggily blinked up at a familiar ceiling through a crystal visor.
Wow!
They jumped the gun on that minute! They just pulled the plug!
Ymir Corp must be having some serious issues to pull the plug like that. Another hacker attack? Having GMs like Marinca at the controls doesn't inspire confidence either...
Kazuto sat up and formally shut-down his AmuSphere.
Well, at least I didn't have to wonder how to handle Leafa's outrageous tease. I'll rib Suguha about it while setting up supper.
Kazuto used the excuse of giving his female sibling the courtesy of using the bathroom first to silently hole-up in his room, though by muted sound of running water she apparently already beat him to it to his surprise while pondering the disturbingly odd fresh encounter in another universe. After ten minutes he slipped out his room to the nearby clatter of kitchen pots and utensils to avail himself of the bathroom where he whiffed the fresh fragrance of lilac water.
Kirito grinned with a touch of a leer;
Well, it's sure not for Recon, poor devil!
So despite her tomboy demeanor, a lady lurks deep my sister's heart, he thought, wondering for whom she was wasting the cologne on a school night. Suguha had many male admirers at school but social propriety kept them at wide berth from engaging her, unlike couples who were SAO survivors whose near-death experience left their in-game romance far less reserved outside than - and envied by their normal world peers.
Suguha, busily pulling out a wok on the burners, saw him enter and sheepishly grinned.
"I guess you're going to crow about winning the race by fluke, onii-chan - even though it was a stupid system glitch!"
"Glitch?"
"Just as I went supersonic on you! Lucky you! I couldn't even log back in to catch up to you! All I got was a silly maintenance alert!"
"But - that didn't happen till after I caught you from falling!"
"After what?"
"You suddenly dropped like a rock during the race. I caught you, remember?"
"Caught me?" Suguha coyly chafed, "I'd remember that! Say, what took you so long Can you take out the carrots?"
"Er, sure!" Kirito mulled her answer while he took out carrots and cabbage and leeks on the cutting board table. "Uh, by the way, you feel okay from that drop? You sounded a little dazed."
"Dazed?"
"Well, that's how Leafa looked while I was holding her, almost like you didn't know me, calling me 'Kirito-kun' and hinting that we do supper at Agil's."
"Are you teasing, onii-chan?"
"No, no way!
"I guess I was more disoriented that I though!" she chafed with doubt and paused what she was doing and considered him ruefully. "Onii-chan...I -I want to help you get over Asuna, but...I always have to tell myself not too much."
"I - don't understand," he obliquely professed of a poignant episode ever hovering them like a forbidden ghost and she sheepishly like from a lost foible.
"Don't worry, onii-chan. I'm over it. No...make that, I'm resigned to what can never be," she near-whispered like a wistful sigh.
Something crimped in his heart.
For a moment she sounded like, felt like a touch of Leafa -
"Suguha -"
"Can you fetch some carrots, please?" she requested, hastily turning away with finality.
Kazuto blushed, sorry now he brought up and demurred.
Damn!
Why is it she feels so much more cousin than sister lately now? Kazuto rued; It's almost like the social and civil and moral barriers keeping me from regarding her more – naturally are turning to rubber! Maybe I should seriously cut back spending so much time alone together cavorting in Alfheim, even if she says distraction's therapy for a broken heart! Still, it's a queer thing to think but if you stand back, on paper, Suguha's almost a hand in glove soulmate.
Intelligent, bold, athletic, talented, witty, sensitive. Almost everything Asuna was except in girliness and stunning looks, and that's why Leafa's equalizer so exasperates and scrambles my proper brotherly aloofness because she's got that too.
Maybe hadn't I realized who Leafa really was when we first met things could've been different today. It felt good coming to Leafa's rescue from the Salamanders and chatting with her at the tavern, and maybe hadn't my worries over Asuna so clouded everything else out then maybe...maybe we could've been close friends right off the bat right there. Then, maybe it was a good thing I was on a rescue mission instead of diving Alfheim as a lark...
Kazuto realized his sister was looking at him expectantly and suddenly felt like glass.
"Uh, I'll get the carrots," he said, moving to the task then with guiltily said, "Huh, let's take Yui along for the bunny hunt Sunday, okay? Be a nice experience to help her cope with - our situation."
Suguha frowned. "We don't need a chaperon, onii-chan. I'm not going to pounce on you."
Kazuto felt his face go aflame.
That's my Suguha! Proper and demure to a fault, but it was because of those qualities that she came through her crisis remarkably well. Even Koujiro Rinko and Kikuoka Seijirou agreed that Suguha needed no therapy to deal with her secret affection for me after their breakout. Such affairs do happen with half and step siblings suddenly living under one roof, and her emotions though incongruous, were perfectly natural and understandable.
After all we were just cousins, not true siblings.
On paper.
If, despite her assertions, she still felt the same for me as before her crisis she was doing a damn good job concealing or denying it, in which case I pitied her with indelible unresolvable guilt.
Just let sleeping dogs lie.
But Leafa's existence doesn't allow that to happen.
"Uh, er, I - I just thought - thought that - she can use a new mom now. I mean she's really confused by our split, you know? Her AI's very perceptive but human emotions are still like a dark jungle to her, you know?
Suguha looked dubious then brightened with a wan giggle. "Sure. I can do that, onii-chan. Then she'll be our child, right?"
# # #
Kirito materialized near the great Aztec-like pyramid of Spriggan Capital City and flew off for the forest of shadows, at once curious why Liz and Silica needed to enlist Yui's assistance all day.
It smelled like another Suguha bribe.
My sister's pulling all the stops to have sibling time together plug my shattered heart. Then, she knows firsthand how that feels, doesn't she? I have to give her credit though; she had the will and respect not to let her passionate sib pine gush all over me like those bro' chasing floosie sisters in mangas these days. Sometimes I wonder whether she's not the only one playing that denial game either, right guy? Might it be that she long ago sensed and mistook that my early pubescent interest in girls was spilling over to her beyond mere sibling curiosity and she walled off any flattered precocious affection she had for me to keep us pure even before I sensed the danger myself and shut her out by delving deep into games so?
That was a creepily disturbing thought, and not without a tinge of guilt despite what Koujiro Rinko confided me in the hospital about there not being a brother born who hadn't at least twice in their life just briefly wondered what their sisters would be 'like'.
May the perfectly morally chaste brother cast the first stone.
Thank god for cousins...
He heard a faint whoosh and looked up to see floating down a blonde emerald sylphette who executed a cute one leg landing soft as a giant butterfly near him.
"Kirito-kun!" Leafa happily greeted to his blink aback and frowning smirk.
"'Kirito-kun'? There you go again, Suguha!" he chafed, stressing his displease with the in-game violation of her IRL name, but she only blinked quizzically back.
"Suguha?" she asked and Kirito eyed her close for any sign of flippant tease but found only sincere puzzlement in her eyes.
"Uh, you don't have to be that into the game if it's just between us, Suguha."
"Suguha? Who's Suguha?"
"You mean you don't know you're Suguha?"
"Who?"
"The person you log out as. The real you. Suguha. My sister."
"Sister?" she chafed.
"What's so amusing?"
"Sorry. It's hard for me to picture your having a sister!"
"Well, take a look in a mirror or a lake," he quipped, the issue making him consider her.
No, Leafa's not like Suguha, not totally. She's bolder, unabashed and daring, not demure and proper, but then the system does that to spice up our character's personas, inside and out, blind to what real-world relations you have. Which is way I can admit that she's also -
Beautiful...
No - No, I mean...I mean...
Freak, but she is!
Kirito forced himself to reconsider what his loins were nagging.
Leafa's my sister, remember guy?
Well actually Suguha is, beyond just in real-life. In this form, this alien sylph's way different from Suguha. Cuter, prettier, sassy, a saucy fox -
Geese! It's alright to say that, right? To compliment her different looks and manner. To appreciate them. To say this flavor of her is refreshingly different and distinct. Even when I first met Leafa I had to suppress my fascination with her in deference to Asuna's plight. I'd no wild idea that Suguha was beneath that sylph's skin, yet I should've sensed something, some familiar trace of my sister in her inflection or manner, right? I mean your sib couldn't fool you in a Halloween costume, right?
Cute...
"Kirito-kun'?" queried a soft wondering voice and he looked up at the fairy girl's face.
Okay, I don't know what her coy game is, but I'll play along.
"Uh, okay, Leafa, let's go on a bunny hunt! Ragout rabbit!"
"That's okay me!" the sylphette chimed.
By the end of the day, Kirito not only found himself utterly thrilled and refreshed but strangely titillated in ways undared before. Somehow, with her warm giggles and sparkling eyes and teasing smile and lithe banter, Leafa felt more than casual companion than relative. Almost brashly refreshing different.
Almost -
"Uh, it's about dinner time home," he reminded to derail wild notions. "But we gotta do this again, okay?"
"Me too, Kirito-kun!" Leafa beamed, emerald eyes twinkling and Kitito found himself moved and awed before beauty.
Log out before you do something stupid, guy!
He willed up the display and punched in LOG OUT and the coy pretty smile before him vanished and he was staring at his bedroom ceiling.
He hit the bathroom and wondered whether he should go to the kitchen, and he was surprised to see Suguha waiting outside the door. "Oh, sorry I took so long -"
"Where were you, Onii-chan?" she chided, angrily tapping her foot, crossed arms nestling her sweatshirt's plump bosom.
"Where?"
"I was pacing out a trench in the plaza! Where were you?"
"What do you mean where was I? I was with you!"
Suguha almost prettily smirked. "That's not like you to fib, Onii-chan! I got bored pacing and sat on a log and took a nap only just now woke up because of the dinner call!"
"Suguha, are you teasing me now?"
Suguha said with a touch of bitterness. "I can't do that anymore, onii-chan."
"No, no, I mean it! I was with Leafa all day! You're telling me you don't remember that?"
Suguha pouted.
"Suguha, I'm not joking!"
Suguha's generous bosom swelled with her sigh. "Forget it, onii-chan. I'll let it go only because you're trying to get over Asuna. I'll go start supper now."
"No, wait !"
But something wild in Kirito broke his pursuit.
# # #
Leafa was at the Bleeding Boar inn when he logged in and she cheerfully hopped up before him so energetically that he though she was going to throw her slim arms around his neck.
Not that the notion didn't titillate him now.
"Hi Kirito-kun!"
"Hi, Leafa," he said, forcing to distracting himself from the elfin face. "Er, look, can you log-out a moment?"
"'Log-out'?" Leafa said in a odd puzzled way. "Why?"
"I want to see Suguha face-to-face."
Leafa smirked. "There YOU go again, Kirito!"
"Mean you don't know you're Suguha?"
"I'm me! Who else would I be?"
"You telling me that you don't know who you really are?"
"Of course I do!"
"Ah, good."
"Leafa!"
"Damn! Suguha! If you're not playing around then things are royally messed up!"
"How do you mean?"
"I mean it's like neither of you know the other and you don't even know you're sis."
"Is that so important?"
"Is it? Uh...maybe...maybe I should report it."
Like, this is almost as bad as the Infinity Moment and Hollow Fragment Cardinal glitches, but those were system wide ones they fixed pretty quickly. Leafa's been like this almost two weeks! Also, I'm not suppose to remember just how crazily close we were in "Moment," even if it's just a dream...
He gasped as a firm warm body crashed into him with a soft cushioned bounce and Leafa brashly smiled up at him. "Leafa!"
"Let's go camping together in the Onyx Mountains, Kirito-kun!" she whispered. "Just us, one tent, all week!"
Kirito blurted, "What? Are you kidding?"
"Not about us."
"We – I can't do that!"
"Yes you can. Just call sick for school."
"That's not what I mean! I mean, how do you think it'd look if people knew?"
Leafa pouted. "Didn't matter to you sleeping with Liz while chasing dragon turds!"
"No 'with'! We were in separate sleeping bags out in the open – on business – and nothing happened Geese, Leafa! It's not like even you to be so forward – forget Suguha!"
She sniffed. "I'm not 'Suguha'!"
"Well, you are, and you're really acting crazy now!" he scolded, working himself from the slyph's grasp. "What's gotten into you, girl?"
"Not much," she dryly quipped to his wince of dismay.
"That's not funny – and Suguha doesn't even think like that!"
"Then if I'm not 'Suguha' anyway, why so shy, Kirito-kun?"
"Because you can't just separate yourself from your real self like that, even here!"
"But don't you wish it, Kirito-kun?" she cooed up close with a dewy gaze.
Something thumped below his belt.
Shit!
"No, no, that's – sick," he witlessly blurted and denied but too late. Wirh a frowning bridle, Leafa stalked off.
Shit!
"Wait Leafa!"
He grasped her by the shoulders - the first time he ever remembered doing so.
"I'm sorry. I - I didn't mean anything by that."
"Why do you always question everything, Kirito-kun?"
"You mean you recall I do?"
"See what I mean?"
"Wait, wait, listen, it's not you. I mean, something strange is going on. You're not - acting the way I remember."
"I'm just me, Kirito-kin," she rebuffed with a pretty pout.
"Uh, yea, about that...what happened when you logged out last time?"
"I didn't log out."
"What you mean? You have to!"
"No...I don't."
"Saying you've never logged out?"
"Why?"
"That's impossible, Suguha!" he checked himself before a petulant look. "Er, I mean, why didn't you?"
She shrugged and gave a sweeping look around them."Why leave home?"
"Home? Leafa, don't you remember anything about the real world?"
"This is the real world."
Holy shit. What's with this weird two-way amnesia?
But if it's true...
"So, what'd you do after I logged out?"
"I went shopping and took Retro on a training mission and did some combat exercises with Yuuki and when I got home I started on preparing the stew -"
"Yuuki?" Kirito blurted. "You don't mean Yuuki Konno?"
"That strange?"
"Strange? She's dead!"
Leafa tinkered. "I'm sure she'd be glad to hear you say that!"
"Wait wait wait! What's going on here? All this can't be happening!"
Wait, wait! One mystery at a time, guy!
"If there's anything strange it's the way you're acting, Kirito-kun!" she chafed, grasping his hand for the door. "Maybe some some good home cooking will help that famished brain of yours!"
"Home cooking?"
"Like I said, I cooked some Ragout stew from the hunt. Would you like some?"
"Ragout rabbit stew?"
Asuna..
"You know how to cook Ragout rabbit?"
Leafa smirked. "Can I hit the side of a barn?"
"But - it takes super special cooking skills - uh, forget it. I'm all awed out."
Leafa said rather coyly. "It was supposed to be a surprise."
"Sure is! You mean you've the cooking skills to do that?"
"Of course!" Leafa tinker, sprouting diaphanous wings and dragging him upward with her. "Especially since you're helping me, Kirito-kun!"
# # #
Leafa's home was a quaint ivy-draped cottage on the outskirts of the Ancient Forest and there were hints of Suguha's martial arts influence but only a spice to a greater motif more distinct and feminine.
Kirito exclaimed, "I didn't know you'd a place!"
"It's a gift from Lady Sakuya for your alliance bluff on General Eugene. It'd take me three grand quests to reap enough Cor to buy it!" She fell coy. "In a real way, you can say this you all your place."
"No, no, no. You earned it. Without your help I would've been lost way too late to...to..."
He gnashed his tongue and Leafa seemed to sense what and let it go with a light titter and shoved a wicker basket into his hands
"Now you go out and gather some herbs and berries while I get serious on the bunny!"
"Pushing me out, uh?"
"Never, Kirito-kun," she dewily said and he cracked a chuckle and hastened out.
By the time Kirito returned with a basket brimming with vegetables he was struck seeing Leafa puttering around in a kind of pinafore outfit that tomboyish Suguha wouldn't be caught dead in, only further increasing the alien difference between the two girls
She's really not like Suguha at all, but like a whole another girl. I mean she's familiar, but in a long-time friend way, not like I do with Suguha.
After setting the table Leafa left the room for what seemed a long time and just before Kirito went to see what the matter was he gasped, taken aback seeing the sylph maiden coyly gracing a slit-skirt and a plunging neckline draped by roiling golden tresses.
Kirito couldn't suppress a sub-navel thump. "Wow! Er, I mean – nice."
"Am I okay?" she demurely asked. He chuckled.
"Way more than 'okay'! Uh, er – don't tell me that's something else Lady Sakuya left you!"
Leafa giggled. "It was a gift to her from Alicia Rue, but she misjudged her curves!"
Kirito chuckled, a delicious tenseness becoming him. "Uh, you kind of make me feel under-dressed as a Peking duck!"
Leafa giggled. "Heroes are excused to come as they are!" she tittered as he pulled her chair for her to elegant slip upon and with a spell of enchantment Kirito ruled the table with his assorted adventures from SAO to rescuing Alice and by the time the dandelion wine was poured it was already a twilight with a forest ghostly illuminated by a silvery crescent moon.
She's so awesome! Kirito reflected in fascination. I never bantered with Suguha like this, and even though a lot of it was repeated to shy awkward topics, if feels sparkling fresh sharing with Leafa.
Kirito insisted on doing dishes alone just to distract himself from the looker bantering from the sofa .
"It's so lovely outside!" she remarked. "Let walk the woods and see the elf rings glow."
"Elf rings? Don't you mean fairy rings?"
"If we're unlucky enough to happen one one, just don't mention that to an elf! They're very sensitive about humans tossing their unique rites and places into the same kettle as other fairies!"
"So you've seen them, uh?"
"Just a lucky peep," she coyly said, opening the door. "For now on it's a no-fly zone else you'd wind up with a face of smashed bat."
"Like a bug on a windshield, uh?" he japed, enjoying a warm bold of her hand clasping his.
It was a stroll under balmy stars and a floodlight moon that cast shadows.
A comely companion besides him.
Yes, that's what she felt like.
A companion past a friend or a..
Ahead amid the darkness islands of feeble yellow light appeared on the forest floor which crystallized into clusters of luminous mushrooms.
"Awesome," Kirito said, stooping as though a cat waiting outside a mouse-hole. "Are there really fairies?"
"Yes, but they only come out the witching hour."
"Huh?"
"Midnight! Don't you know know Halloween?" Leafa chafed with a giggle. "Actually it's a bad idea to tread their sacred place while they're asleep underground because they'd smite you with a spell that turns you into a toad or fly or unicorn."
"You'd make a nice unicorn," Kirito quipped and Leafa giggled and gazed into the forest.
"Actually I've seen one here."
"Kidding! I didn't even know they existed here!"
"In that forest almost anything can. Whether it's actually 'real' is another matter."
"Still, it must've been a very rare sighting, Even rarer than Ragout bunnies!"
"I guess it was by fluke during my midnight stroll. It was during my first weeks in Alfheim that I spotted it, softly glowing beyond the trees. They don't look like horses like most people think. They're more like snow white gazelles with long spiral horns on their brows."
"Sounds very lovely. Too bad I'll never got the chance to see one."
"Why not?" Leafa asked in puzzlement before it dawned her to blush. "Oh...er, but - maybe you still can, if you're still pure in real life."
It was Kirito's turn to cough. "Uh, er, don't make me out that I'm a Miss Goody Two Shoes, Leafa! I mean - I'm as red-blooded as any regular guy about - about girls IRL! "
Leafa tittered. "Poor Asuna Yuuki!"
"Uh?" Kirito bit his tongue. Damn, why's she bringing that up? "Uh, er, she - she understood why I didn't...er, I was just - respecting her real-life virtue after SAO by - suspending what we had in VR. I mean, your name and honor has to live in the real world too."
"So your 'marriage' was just a dream in a computer?"
Damn! Bam between the eyes! So frank!
"Don't say it like that! Our feelings were sincere. They carried over into real life, didn't they?" Do I sound a tad bitter?
"Do you regret that. Kirito-kun?" Leafa asked in an odd curious way that felt very uncomfortable.
"No. You can't forget the life you had in SAO. We were real people living together to survive there, not in a cartoon. You have no idea what it was like."
Not quite true; you'd a taste of it in the 'Infinity Moment' and 'Hollow Fragment' glitches but like everyone there don't remember.
Thank Gods.
"Maybe because there was no need to hug someone for support in the face of death anymore was a reason she - went away," Leafa tactfully rebuffed to my blink aback.
From the mouth of babes! I never thought of that angle. As harsh as it was, the empathetic logic of it made losing Asuna a little more platable and yet - even acceptable. Was it less unfettered affection than the pressure of ever looming death that brought Asuna and I together? Would've we bonded so in the real world without SAO?
Suguha reasoning sticking it to me, but that mention felt inappropriate here.
"You're far wiser than you let on, Leafa," I admitted and complimented.
"No. It just takes a little longer for you to admit it to yourself!" she obliquely chafed.
"Come again?" Kirito asked but she only demurely smiled with a soft wistful sigh and boldly took his startled hands.
"Let's waltz among the rings, Kirito-kun!" she tinkered.
"Huh?"
"Waltzing fairy rings weaves good luck, don't you know?"
"Uh, er, I'm not as deep into lore as Su - er, you."
"There's nothing to it. After all, we did so before long ago, only our feet weren't touching the ground."
"Uh...yeam" He blushed at the memory of forbidden excitement.
It feels like I've just met her yet known her forever...
This is not Suguha...
It's like she has her own life apart.
She's not Asuna, just different.
She glided them between the massive tree trunks, her every dainty step weaving delicate bulbs and stems. She giggled when his feet squashed a few mushrooms as he tried to shadow her motion, and gently to avoid further damage they drew closer and to his uneasy thrill he felt her bosom occasionally brush his chest then soft mash against him, upthrusting her lush bosom under his eyes.
Abashed Kirito gulped as Leafa gazed him fondly through shimmery emeralds by moonglow.
He felt their hearts beating.
Who is this?...
Under the spontaneity of the moment Kirito's scrambled thoughts wafted like the aching hole in his heart and he beheld before warm soft eyes that fluttered shut under pale feathery lashes. Despite denial the man in him thumped and throbbed from once forbidden places now somehow totally irrelevant, and of it own accord his head slightly lowered and gently, almost skittishly, brushed petal soft lips that beckoned his brief part to return to press then gently knead and effuse fluttering butterflies throughout every strummed vein.
Leafa...
Witlessly their wings beat till the forest was a glittering carpet below them.
He parted for air, thrill and abashed and uncertain yet sure.
More.
I feel - clean.
Like she's whole other girl.
A different girl.
This is Leafa.
Just Leafa.
Totally unattached her trunk incarnation in the real world.
"Kirito-kun..." Leafa asked softly a dreamy sigh then giggled like schoolgirl, emerald eyes sparkling. "O Kirito-kun! It feels like - like - all the dreams I ever had were answered!"
"And mine!" Kirito answered in momentary apropos before in giddy awe admitting that there was more sincere truth in that than he ever though.
Long ago I'd always been afraid of this happening, and it was partly why I fell apart from her. Tried to merely be a brother to her by being even more aloof than real cousins are, but I can't deny it anymore.
Leafa's brushed his lips to meld again again until their wings tired and they floated down to a glade in tight embrace.
During a pause Kirito half-abashedly felt himself nudging Leafa's hip and clung that excuse and handhold to part from her and traded winded smiles, waiting for a flurry of butterflies in his chest settle and clear the air from his true emotions and intentions and admission before this willowy fairy girl.
God, I found her...
A stranger-friend I've known longer and deeper than even Asuna, only now out in the daylight.
It's so complicated, but I feel true and whole again.
The hole is filled.
The hurt is gone.
Asuna is gone.
There's only Leafa.
Now Leafa.
Ever Leafa.
It's as though all my own long denied damned feelings for Suguha were awakened and exploded into reality. Yet – I don't see Suguha in this warm brilliant dawn in my pounding chest, like she's an afterthought or a second player in the wings. I only beat for Leafa, and it somehow feels clean and clear...
Almost like 'Hollow Fragment,' except it's no dream...
"Kirito-kun?"
But is this right if Suguha herself doesn't know of this? Am I more than just taking advantage of this amnesia thing with Leafa? Am I betraying Suguha's trust the worst way a brother can?
"Uh, look, Leafa, I - I need time to think," He paused and gazed into dewy emerald orbs searching him like a puzzled child, totally oblivious of her root incarnation. Of the person whose ties were hamstringing their fulfillment...
"Kirito-kun?"
Yes, I've got to deal with this.
Kirito smiled and palmed her velvety cheek which her slim hands clasped in return. "No, that's not right, Leafa. There's nothing to think about anymore. Just that – I have to be sure of something before I see you again. And I want to, for a long long time. Yes, I do."
"O Kirito-kun!" she softly mewled and cradled her cheek against his and he fought to part her.
"Wait for me," he promised. She grudgingly nodded and watched him pull up a display and just before he hit LOG OUT he checked her face and hoped.
In moments back in his room, Kazuto suddenly got cold feet in hard reality.
But what if I'm wrong?
What was Suguha going to say or do?
Scold me? Chastise me for crossing the line? She can't be such a hypocritical tease to indulge what just happened then act like it hadn't!
He waited a few minutes then almost reluctantly rose to the door and nearly started aback seeing Suguha standing there about to knock, looking at once petulance and disappointed.
Oh God.
Kazuto snapped to bow in apologize. "I beg forgiveness, Suguha! I - I lost my head! I did an unforgivable thing!"
"Well, you ought to apologize - but aren't you laying it on a bit thick?" Suguha wryly uttered.
"No! There's no excuse! Not even doing it in virtual reality. Immorality is immorality, no matter where it occurs! I'm not worthy the name of brother!"
"Whoa bro'! Who'd you kill?"
"Kill?" he quizzically asked and she grudgingly sighed and crossed her bosom-nesting arms.
"Standing me up is a real habit now, but I'll let it pass because you're still in mourning for Asuna, onii-chan. But no more outings till you straighten out your love life. I've better things to do than falling asleep around Swilvane waiting for you! Slice and dice the carrots, please."
"Huh?" Kazuto blurted. Did I just jump the gun somehow?
Check it out, guy, check! Better to blow everything now than be haunted by misunderstandings later, even if it means that I'm in love with a phantom...
"Uh, er...you mean, you don't remember taking me to your cottage - Leafa's cottage - and having Ragout stew and dancing in the fairy rings and – and...?"
He gnashed his tongue with instant aching misgivings before her pretty but unamused smirk.
"Onii-chan, if you're going to make up tales to cover you and Klein having a drunken binge somewhere while I was napping all alone, get a better ghostwriter!" she snapped and coolly turned and marched off for the kitchen.
Kazuto shook his head.
Crazy!
She's utterly totally clueless!
There's no way to fake never having a toes-curling kiss only minutes ago like this! I mean Suguha's been holding back her desires for me ever since gushing them out in the Sugou Nobuyuki incident, so why plug them up all over again now after finally getting her dream with me? Maybe she's just too embarrassed to admit she did it on impulse or doesn't want to start anything here that'd bring shame to our family if this ever got out.
Even if it's only between me and Leafa in a whole other universe apart this one's conventions and morality and rules and even true selves. And Leafa doesn't even come across like Suguha in voice and moves anymore much less know she is.
I gotta take this chance...
"I - I'm glad you understand, Suguha," he gently said, "I was hoping that – you'd be happy once I was over Asuna."
Kazuto nervously nibbled his lip. Was my double-meaning bait too obvious?
Suguha paused and looked at him oddly like some long wished now lost. "I though so too." she vapidly said in a wry ambiguous way. A tweak of phantom guilt coaxed Kazuto.
Keep going, guy.
If Suguha's really coyly acting out her desires through Leafa, I don't want to scare her off from playing on with embarrassment and shame of it being revealed in the real world. All I want is her consent that it's happening to clear my conscious. Just using the excuse that we're in truth just cousins doesn't cut it, we're far too close and familiar as siblings for that. We might as well share the same blood...
"Well, I'm just saying that because, even though you're my sister, we're still cousins too, you know? I mean, I know how badly you were hurt that day that you found out I was Kirito..."
She blinked and blushed aside at a trespass of a still slightly raw wound.
Sorry, Suguha, I have to mention it, There's no way around it because it's key here, and besides it's been hovering over us like a silent specter ever since that day we discovered who we really were in ALfheim.
Suguha mulled long moments then almost casually faced him. "I'm over that, Onii-chan. It was - just a silly crush left over from worrying about you being unconscious in SAO."
"I see...so, you, er...feel - er, nothing different about me now?"
"What are you trying to say, onii-chan?"
"Nothing, nothing. I'm just - hoping my losing Asuna hasn't - gotten you down too." Lame. Lame...
Suguha shrugged and resumed chopping carrots. "No, why should it? I'm more concerned how it's affecting you!"
"I'm okay, Suguha," Kazuto assured. "Er, you know that - I wouldn't do anything to hurt you or your feelings. I'll do anything you wish for. Anything you dream or imagine I'll do if it makes you feel happy."
Blushing again, Suguha chafed. "You're embarrassing me, onii-chan! It's almost - indecent!"
Kazuto looked into her deep gray eyes. "Then maybe it's time I ask something even more indecent."
"Uh?" she quizzically asked and he swallowed hard bracing himself.
Should I do this?
Slay the golden goose and the bird in the hand?
I can still be with Leafa behind her back...but I'd feel better if she least had a head's-up hint in a fantasy...
"Uh, I know it might hurt remembering, but remember what I told you during our night sky dance when New Anicrad rose?" he gingerly asked to her thin arched eyebrows, knowing he asked an inane question. He cleared his throat. "Uh, I was just wondering since it was a hard time for both of us, that - suppose I lost Asuna back then and – and I was so deep in a runt that – I – I came on you on the blind rebound. Would've you understood?"
Well framed innocent fatal bait...
Suguha looked at once surprised and abashed and intrigued by the question. "Uh...I...er, of course I would've understood, onii-chan. I know how hurt feelings can drive one to do crazy things."
Cute, sis!
Okay, guy, draw a deep breath and take the plunge...
"But suppose...suppose I – I really meant it."
"Sorry?"
"Suppose I...I saw you for the person – the cousin you are – instead of a sister, just like you – you wished I wasn't your brother?"
Suguha frowned and looked a touch – hopeful? "Onii-chan, what are you trying to say?"
Get it together guy!
"Suguha, I'm just saying that – that I remember how hurt you were that I – I didn't see you as a person and didn't see your feelings for me – " Her expression blushed and braced " – because I was busy too infatuated with Asuna, but had I lost her back then, I wonder whether – whether things would've been different between us today, you know what I mean?"
Suguha had a rueful look of chances and dreams long lost and turned to slowly dice carrots. "Maybe the real question, onii-chan," she demurely chafed, "is would've you felt a wolf pouncing a lamb?"
Whoa! I'm blushing a storm now!
Touche, Suguha!
Isn't predator guilt the core of my apprehensions? It's like her awareness of such has willfully cracked the door to any wild siscon whimsey, but I need some serious judo now. I really don't want her thinking I'm really into it...
Kazuto mustered thought. "Uh, let's – put it this way. You're – a very talented and interesting and lovely person, and if – if we strangers in school, I'd ask you out in a heartbeat."
Man, was that corny – worst when spoken to your own sister who just now blinked aback and effused a small giggle she hastily muffled then canted her head admirably at him.
"Now you confess, onii-chan!" she chafed then gave a sigh like they missed another like ships in the night long ago. "I still remember how I pined that way about you, onii-chan, how my heart sang like a caged bird sitting across from you at the table or kendo mats...but lately, it's like – like the flame has shrunken to embers while waiting for Asuna to pass. Now, it's like recalling a photograph of a bonfire that gives no warmth, like...like I – I've fallen out of love..."
She paused with a rueful swallow badly veiled by a wan smile. "I – still regret missing what it was like, onii-chan, but perhaps it was for the best for us and the honor of our families," she added with a coy smile and returned to dicing.
Kazuto mustered a bold breath; "So...you don't see anything – unclean with how we felt, uh?"
Her cutting knife paused with a plunge of moral introspection. "Our hearts were pure, onii-chan. I've no misgivings feeling for you so then. Only that – those unbridled hopes are now only far lost dreams..." She almost abashedly let it trail and her blade continued as though an inner wistfulness had slipped out in an uncomfortable atmosphere.
But you still dream of us together – as Leafa, don't you Suguha?
Kazuto chuckled to break the uneasy somber tension, "Well, whatever, I'm just glad you're my back-up these days, Suguha."
"I always am, onii-chan. Besides, it could've been worst and we were true blood siblings," she chafed, busied on her tasks.
I wonder, Suguha. I really wonder.
Kazuto bided his time till after cleaning dishes before innocently asking; "So, you going 'anywhere' later?" he asked and she looked reflective.
"I - I guess I'm going to call Recon to do some barter."
"The Broken Jaw tavern?" he lightly baited.
"No way! The Emerald Lamp Inn!" she chafed then added veiled in politeness; "I know it's totally pointless to invite you at this stage..."
Kazuto chuckled then sincerely told her. "No, sorry. I - I'll be busy with a very lovely young lady."
Suguha's brows knitted with piqued curiosity. "Oh? Anyone I know?"
# # #
Kirito had just materialized in the plaza when he saw a beaming Leafa skipping for him as though abut to jump into his arms. "Kirito-kun!"
"To your place - quick!" he said, and she looked quizzical but prompt and flashed up her display and teleported them inside her cottage.
"What was that for, Kirito-kun?"
"Before anyone could see us together, much less Recon even though the dork's always late. Last thing we need is for Suguha to catch wind that's she's running around Alfheim with her bro'friend."
"So, we're a couple now, Kirito-kun?" Leafa asked moving into his arms, nuzzling. He chuckled and kissed. Deep, lips grinding like their bodies full.
Geeze!
Suguha's libido at work?
No. No Suguha.
This is someone apart, not merely a totally different face, looks, bod, even voice.
Like our bliss in 'Hollow Fragment', only it's no dream...
He broke off winded and grinned before bright glimmering emerald eyes.
"Yes. I feel clean about this, Leafa. Suguha even hinted that she wishes – hey, don't roll your eyes like that! You're Suguha in the real world, Leafa. I don't know what's caused this mutual amnesia between you two, but you have to deal with your roots. That's why it was important for me to know that Suguha still had feelings for me to allow this because I don't want to feel like some wolf sneaking behind a lamb's back."
"You told her?"
"Not exactly. I didn't want to rock the boat in case she really was playing a wild way she could never admit to be you like this, but I gave her enough hints that if she was really somehow subconsciously expressing her forbidden feelings for me through you that I'd play along this time, even though you're way different from her now. What do you think?"
Leafa fell sheepish, like child knowing she was about to be punished. "Uh, Onii-chan...I – I have a confession to make."
"Another one?"
"See, I...I remember my – real-life."
Kirito jerked aback. "What? You remember - what?"
"Being...her too."
"This is no time to be cute! Are you saying you're still Suguha?
"No exactly. I mean I don't remember us together like this IRL."
"Like that makes a difference?"
"Yes! Here, I'm far more than what the real world allows me to be! More than what allows me to feel and think and behave! I'm not the same socially shackled person you know IRL!"
"Great! Suguha two-point-O! Were you like this all along?"
"Of course not! It started after I fell out of the sky. I soon realized that IRL I can't recall whenever I'm alone with or close with you. It's like - being a one-way mirror of yourself."
"Man, and I thought you just couldn't get any werider!"
"Hey!"
"I'm not knocking you! I just don't like getting treated like a mushroom! Why didn't you say so when you knew?"
"Because the wolf would've turned tail from the lamb and bolted like lightning!" she chided almost sulkily.
"Well, you have that right! Why'd you decide on owing up about this now?" he asked and Leafa fell coy and he smirked. "I get it. You held back till our feelings were past the point of no-return, right? Cute!"
"Don't be sore, Kirito-kun!" she said, clinging his arm. "Didn't I - she hint that she still has feelings for you in dreams the way worst way?"
"Uh, she was wasn't THAT explicit!" Kirito chided with a cackle and mulled. "Suguha said that she now feels like she 'fell out of love' with me around the time after you fell out of the sky. So you're saying all her pines and desires for me are now somehow blocked off IRL except here, right? How can that be?"
Leafa shrugged and draped arms around his neck. "All I know is I don't have any qualms about loving you, Kirito-kun."
"I guess that answers it," he said with a chuckle melding lips, and after they breathlessly broke from a bottomed-out kiss, he pecked her creamy brow and thought.
"I trust you, Leafa. If you say you're Suguha-plus and deep inside she'd approve of us like this behind her own back so she wouldn't be a moral hypocrite in our sibling-ship IRL, then that's as good as her consent to me. I mean, the only reason I'm accepting this is because she's really my cousin and you're not the same Suguha IRL. A twin mind with the same memories maybe, but you're not my- sister in feeling."
Yes, I can truly say that now.
"O Kirito-kun!"
A tight breathless pounding embrace breaking for air, filling him with resolve
"Right now, my number one passion is to dump my Yui sensory support project and find the underlying reasons why you're like this."
"Why bother?"
"Because if it's a glitch in Suguha's AmuSphere or in Cardinal I have to know so I can somehow isolate it from any repairs to keep your personalities apart to evolve more different and unique like Darwin's birds. I might not feel so guilty being with you this way now, but you're still too close like your real-life self to totally feel comfortable with. I hope that doesn't offend you."
"You're so thoughtful and of course not, Kirito-kun! I'm very curious to see how different a life I'll lead here apart from the real world!"
"Well, don't quit your day job yet," he quipped with a shiver. "I mean, though Suguha just about endorsed us being together - in a dream or fantasy, how would she take it if she suddenly realized everything we've done since that day you fell actually happened? Not a real-feeling fantasy or daydream but for real. Could Suguha really accept us – herself – doing this?" He looked questionably at her odd bemusement. "Well, wouldn't you know – of all people?"
"It's not that easy, Kirito-kun. She dreamed of being like us from the time we first met, but even here now she's too shy to play-role with you like she really wishes because she'd always have to log back home and see you as a brother again. I think if she remembered what we're doing now, she'd feel ashamed and embarrassed, but she can't deny agreeing to this at least in spirit. So while she likely wouldn't chastise you or feel betrayed, she'd never be as close to you anymore. Her real world morals wouldn't allow it. At least that's how I think how I'd think."
Kirito nodded. "As long as she doesn't hate me or think I took advantage of her, I can live with the risk of having you, Leafa."
"O Kirito-kun!"
He answered her cute muzzle and tightening embrace and hips rubbing his and his arm dropped behind her to caress.
So much like Asuna and more...
Yes, Leafa and I.
A secret pairing guiltless and pure and endorsed by my own sister. However it happened, Leafa's almost whole different girl.
Petal-soft lips pecked his chin then lips and he grinned before reciprocating and holding the winged feline fey tighter.
Awesome!
However it happened, Leafa, you really are a new different girl beyond just Suguha's proxy to dwell in another universe what her birth world forbids her to dare and feel.
While lost in a deep kiss, he felt his primal want and unfettered longing press her grinding skirt and the damning thrill of it urged him to draw her into another room before he fought to contain himself and with a chuckle broke from her clinging lips and eased her tapered waist back and gazed her in seeping anticipation. Forbidden recollections of unrestrained togetherness in 'Infinity Moment' teased and whetted him and he restrained himself from following that desire and want in real life.
"Uh, time out, Amazon," he chafed to her pretty pout. "Look, Leafa, I'd like to – really like to, really, but till I do lots of all-nighters to get a handle on how to keep your situation stable, I don't want to tickle the dragon's tail surprising Suguha IRL in the worst way at the worst time, understand?"
Leafa cutely simpered and sighed and kissed his hand. "Don't take too long, Kirito-kun. I've been waiting since first grade."
"Wow. I really am one blind jerk, aren't I?"
-o-o-O-o-o-