Dragons and Eagles
Chapter 2
Games and Monsters
OK, I know Kirito and the SAO characters don't live in Tokyo, but I got a thousand words in before I figured that out, just role with it.
Rukia tugged on the sleeve of her uniform jacket. The dress uniforms both she and Ichigo had received in the mail a few days before were hot and stifling, not to mention tight. She hated tight clothes. This modern fad of shape-hugging garments had seemingly permeated the military as well; the last time she had had any dealing with the military had been in 1877 and the samurais she had met then had worn robes similar to her own. The uniform she continued to gripe about in her head consisted of navy blue trousers with red stripes running up the sides, a dark blue jacket with brass buttons and red trimmings, and a white peaked cap with a black bill. She was supposed to be wearing a pair of white gloves as well but she would scream of she put on another piece of clothing. She started to grumble under her breath.
"What?" Ichigo asked from the seat behind her, he was wearing the same uniform, plus the gloves.
"It's these damn uniforms." Rukia replied, continuing to grumble and adjust herself constantly.
"Well, you're the one that signed us up for this."
"Shut up"
She finally sighed and stopped fiddling with her uniform and squirming in her seat. If she wasn't comfortable then she probably wasn't going to be so she sucked it up. It had been twenty minutes since the old olive drab Greyhound bus had come by and picked up their group from Karakura High School. The air conditioner was far beyond its expected life span and the Tokyo summer seemed to turn the metal bus into an oven. The trip would be longer than expected because they had to go into the inner city to pick up another group going to the camp before they could proceed to Yokota AFB to catch their flight. None of these factors were designed to put her in a good mood.
Mizuiro and Keigo sat at the front of the bus, as far away from Rukia and Ichigo in the back as possible. Rukia's foul mood and Keigo's incessant approaches were not designed to mix. She regretted snapping at him because on most days she found his misguided affections amusing, but she was in no mood for it today. Orihime and Tatsumi sat in the middle of the bus, talking amiably. Orihime's uniform, like most of her clothes, barely fit, and Tatsumi almost looked like a man. Orihime kept looking back at them and Rukia held no illusions as to which one of them was drawing her attention. Human relationships, especially the ones where one was completely oblivious of the other were highly entertaining, even after fifteen decades. Chad sat two seats in front of them and took up an entire seat row that could normally hold two people, but his uniform fit him exceptionally well.
Although her denreishinki had been upgraded to look like a modern smartphone, it didn't have many of its auxiliary functions, so for the rest of the bus ride, while the rest of her 'classmates' were listening to music, playing games, or talking to their friends, she was stuck in the back of the bus, broiling, with her strawberry-headed companion whose idea of friendly conversation was silence. After about ten minutes of stewing in her agony, the airbrakes on the bus sounded and the ancient Greyhound came to a stop. Rukia opened her eyes as the doors up front opened with a squeak to allow the other group on the bus. The first one on was dark haired boy, maybe seventeen or eighteen, who seemed friendly enough. Behind him was a tall orange-haired (Although not as orange as Ichigo's) girl and a tall brown haired boy, both of whom had smiles plastered on their faces. They appeared to be about the same age as the dark haired boy. Last on was a pair of almost painfully normal girls, one of them looked to be about her own assumed age of fifteen and the other almost looked like a primary schooler, although she could have passed as a second year middle schooler. Maybe. All of them seemed happy and normal enough, but Rukia's experience noticed a deep abyss behind their eyes that she rarely saw outside of carrier soldiers and first responders.
Kazuto was the first on the bus when it arrived at the SAO remedial school. The uniforms they had all received seemed hot, but he didn't mind. He always seemed cold these days anyways. The bus driver gave them a curt nod before Kazuto passed him on his way to his seat. He picked one in the back of the bus, across from a dark haired girl who may or may not have been having a heat stroke. Asuna was behind him and sat down next to him, between him and miss heat stroke. Although she had fussed for hours over her hair, she never quite got the bun under her cap quite right and a few strands still fell in her face. To be honest Kazuto thought it was cute, but she absolutely hated it and was still a little frustrated. Klein was right behind her and sat across from a very large man that Kazuto had a hard time believing was in high school. Behind him came Rika and Keiko, who sat across from another pair of girls in the middle of the bus. He was about to put his earbuds in when the girl next to them spoke.
"You wouldn't happen to have any water, would you?" She asked. Asuna looked at her and blinked.
"Uh, yea, sure." She reached into her bag (She had actually found a shoulder bag that matched the uniforms) and pulled out a twenty ounce water bottle, "Here you go."
"Thanks." She said, immediately draining the bottle. "Kuchiki Rukia."
"Yuuki Asuna."
And so the two girls struck up a conversation with an ease that frankly astounded Kazuto. He shook his head and put his earbuds in, playing soft, haunting music. He probably wouldn't be able to get an internet connection in flight, so he popped his laptop and looked over his feed. Nothing particularly new was happening in the gaming world, so he switched over to real-world.
19 July 2025 Last updated at 16:23 GMT
Blackout! : China goes underground
Earlier today, at 05:00 local time, in what seemed to be a coordinated effort, all media traffic in and out of the People's Republic of China was inexplicably halted. Chinese-based web servers went down and even the infamous Seed VRMMO servers came offline. Passenger flights heading into China were intercepted by fighters of the People's Liberation Army Air Force and forced to turn around and leave Chinese airspace. Several flights ran out of fuel and were forced to crash land in areas such as Afghanistan, Kazakhstan and Siberia.
Intelligence services in Washington and London have released reports urging the public not to panic, that the PRC is simply conducting a nationwide emergency response exercise. Moscow and Tel Aviv, however, have released cryptic reports indicating that this may not be an exercise. Nothing solid or confirmed has come out of any government agency.
The most popular theory amongst internet users so far, not surprisingly, is that the zombie apocalypse had begun in the country. Several major political theorists have speculated that such theories may not be far off, citing infectious disease and rampant radiation as probable causes for China's current behavior. Some less popular theories indicate internal strife such as a rebellion or a military coup...
The bus lurched to a stop. Kazuto looked up and closed his laptop instinctively. Around him the conversation had stopped as the bus doors opened and an American airman stepped on and checked the driver's ID card. Kazuto reached into his bag and drew the papers that had been included with the uniform that should allow him onto the base. He looked out the window and was surprised to see a number of men in full gear, including automatic weapons. He had passed by the base a number of times and he had never seen the guards out in such force. Everything went smoothly until the airman got to Kuchiki-san sitting across from him and Asuna.
"Papers, please." He asked in English. Kuchiki simply stared at him amicably and nodded. Asuna looked back and forth between the two for a moment before speaking.
"Um, Kuchiki-san, he's asking for your papers." She made a little oh and reached into her own bag to retrieve her papers before handing them to the guard with a slightly embarrassed look. Kazuto got the impression that there was more rage than embarrassment behind the façade. The guard left the bus and the bus started moving again before Kuchiki turned around in her seat.
"Hey, Ichigo." She said. He pulled out one of his earphones.
"What is i-" he got out before Kuchiki put two fingers to his temple and his eyes rolled back in his head. It was only half a second before she pulled her hand back and his eyes came back down with a wet cough. It took him a few moments to recover.
"Ah, that's better." Kuchiki said, this time in English. Asuna just coughed herself and turned to her own smartphone with a look that implied that she didn't want to know what had just happened.
"Warn me next time you're going to do that, OK?" The orange-haired boy she had called 'the strawberry' asked.
"You're a big boy, you can take a surprise here and there" She replied.
Kazuto didn't really want to know what happened either, so he put his earbuds in and packed everything into his back pack before the bus pulled up on the tarmac. He looked out the window at the plane that would take them south. It really wasn't much to look at, just a grey winged tube with some engines and a tail. Klein seemed none the less impressed.
"Wow… a C-130… these babies are in every modern war-type game out there, but I've never actually seen a real one before." He seemed awestruck, along with the brown-haired boy at the front of the bus, by the overly average and unassuming plane. Kazuto simply shrugged and took out his earbuds as someone stepped onto the bus.
"You're the summer camp guys, right?" He asked. He wore an olive drab flight suit and a helmet that gave his head a bulbous appearance. He spoke with a thick accent that Kazuto had a hard time understanding, his chewing gum didn't help either.
"Yes, sir." The black-haired boy in the front seat replied.
"Well we're your ride. Get on the plane, buckle into the seats, and stay there. We don't have enough time to be babysitting a bunch of wanna be jarheads." He said curtly before stepping off the bus. Kazuto and Asuna exchanged a look before shrugging and standing up and shuffling off the bus themselves with the rest of the group. On the tarmac were ten large green bags waiting for them. They were each stenciled with the owner's name and a 3-2-4 digit number. Rika and Keiko seemed the struggle with the large bags but the even larger man came over and effortlessly slung them over his shoulder. They nodded a hesitant thanks and he returned it before heading off to the plane. Kazuto and Asuna headed off to the plane as well, finding it to be quite cramped. To rows of seats lined the walls of the plane, facing one another.
"Clip your sea bags to the rings in the floor, buckle up, and keep a tight hold on anything you got, it's going to be a bumpy ride." Came the call from the helmeted man that had met them on the bus, now sitting in a seat at the front of the cargo bay, "Now! Wheels up in five."
Kazuto and Asuna hustled to two seats on the right side of the plane. The large man was already seated on the other side. Kazuto looked at his 'sea bag' and found a cloth ring with a d-clip attached and secured it to the ring in the floor directly in front of his seat. The Ichigo boy from the bus came on next and sat next to Kazuto, with Kuchiki on his other side. Once he had his stuff secured he turned to Kazuto.
"Kurosaki Ichigo." He said reaching out his hand.
"Kirigaya Kazuto." He said, taking it.
"You get shanghaied into this to?" Kurosaki asked. Kazuto gave him a wry smile.
"Yea, something like that, Kurosaki-san." Asuna gave him an annoyed look before looking away and putting her earbuds in.
"Please, call me Ichigo. So why are you here?"
"I… had some problems. My physical rehabilitation hasn't been going quite as well as I'd hope. And you?"
"Rukia over here says I'm too naïve." Kuchiki put on a mischievous smile and closed her eyes, propping her feet up on her bag and chewing a piece of gum. Once the rest of the group had filed onto the plane the ramp closed up and the winged tube lurched forward to an uncertain future.
OK, so these guys are going to be put in fireteams that will more or less determine how relationships form across the story. Here are the propositions:
Fireteam 1: Rukia, Ichigo, Kazuto, Asuna
Fireteam 2: Klein, Chad, Keigo, Mizuiro
Fireteam 3: Tatsumi, Orihime, Keiko, Rika
I'm up for any suggested changes.
Reviews please.
I had the news article all done up like a BBC internet article but the site didn't transfer it over.
