Woaaaah! Hello, everyone, welcome to an unexpected update of this crazy random story OwO!
To be honest, I myself am surprised of how fast I managed to get this chapter out (Given that I started writing it just 2 days ago after publishing the last one of One Punch-Gamer). Then again, the plot and character development of this is way easier compared to my other fic, as it's more like something for me to 'relax' and let free my silliest and craziest side XP (Talking about my other fic, you should probably go read it if you haven't yet. I have been repeatedly told it's awesome, so it must be true :3)
Well, not much more to say, except that this will probably be the last chapter of this for a while, so without further delay, enjoy of the incoming madness OwO!
Disclaimer: SAO and its characters don't belong to me, but to Kawahara Reki. If they did, I would make 'There is But One Ultimate Way' the official canon epilogue of the series so as to everyone could be happy.
Chapter 1: How to be a God…for Dummies
November 6, 2024. Kawagoe, Saitama. Hospital, 12:30…
Looking silently through the window at the midday sun as he finished changing into normal clothes (Which were a relief after being forced to wear that damned hospital gown for so long), Kirigaya Kazuto sighed before giving the room he had been 'sleeping' in for two years one last look.
It would have probably felt a bit more encouraging if it wasn't for all the voices he was suddenly hearing on his head.
"Man, this place is so depressing…"
"Hospital food tastes like shit…"
"…and that's the story of how I met your…"
"Please, let my damn shift end already, I can't stand watching another…"
"Only a couple weeks more before most of the SAO Victims here start getting out…"
"That boy in Room 306 sure recovered fast. Guess some people are luckier than others…"
Closing his eyes and gritting his teeth, the black-haired boy managed to once again silence the echoing thoughts of the people in the building, sweet silence returning to his mind. Grimacing, the gamer opened his eyes before looking at his hands and wondering once again the same time he had done in the last weeks.
"What the hell is happening to me?"
Since the moment he woke up, after the initial shock wore off and he managed to calm Sugu down (Which led to an awkward moment when they realized they had basically been hugging and crying on each other for almost 15 minutes), Kazuto had realized that something was 'wrong' with him. Or, more exactly, that there was nothing wrong with him.
His body was in perfect health. Hell, he was, in fact, feeling better and stronger than ever. The boy had even quickly noticed how he had small, still fitting with his previously 'skinny' frame, but densely packed muscles instead of atrophied ones! It made no freaking sense, and not only because of SAO but because he hadn't been practicing any regular sport since he quitted kendo as a child, having preferred to spent most of his time with computers, playing games more specifically. In fact, the only thing that seemed to indicate he had spent two years lying on a bed while trapped in Aincrad was his messy and wild hair (Which by now he had already cut down, thank God).
The real indication he got that something 'weird' was happening, however, had been when he asked his adoptive sister about it, still reeling from their combined shock, and she had only looked at him oddly before worriedly asking if he was feeling dizzy and wanted her to call a doctor.
Hours later, while the overworked staff still tried to recover some semblance of control in the hospital, when a doctor actually came to check him, their mother arriving shortly after, the gamer started to realize that, apparently, no one else was able to notice that he seemed to be in perfect health. In fact, everyone seemed to think his body looked as frail and thin as it would be expected for someone that just woke up from a years-long coma.
He would have thought maybe it was just him hallucinating things (And with the voices he was hearing in his head that was more than likely) if it wasn't because of how, that night as he tried to get some sleep, he accidentally bent the metallic edge of the bed as if it was made of clay.
After that, things had only gotten freakier. He had realized that he was actually hearing what people thought when he heard his mother worriedly talking to his father over the phone. While she was outside his room, at the other side of the hallway. Apparently, she had been wondering if she should take some days off work to try and help him get used to normal life once again.
It also seemed that she had told Suguha he was adopted at some point while he was in SAO. Discovering that had almost made his heart to skip a beat.
He knew he hadn't been the best of brothers for the young kendoka…no, scratch that, he had been a very shitty one for almost 4 years; since he himself discovered he was adopted. It had taken being trapped into SAO before he realized how stupid he had been and how meaningless his isolation from his family had been. So, what if his parents were in truth just his uncles? What if Suguha wasn't his sister, but his cousin? The girl still had been with him since they were little, even going so far to stand up for him against their grandfather when he quitted kendo.
Despite this, he had still pushed her away from himself without so much as an explanation. After the things that he had experienced while fighting for his life in Aincrad, both the good and the bad, he wanted more than ever to fix that mistake by trying to reconnect with her, but he was scared that now she would be the one to push him away, and the worst part was that he wouldn't be able to say anything if she did without being the biggest hypocrite ever.
And yet, the young kendoka hadn't. Quite the opposite, in fact: The entire first week after he woke up, Suguha would come to see him every evening and stay with him until visit hours were over. It had only been when he had asked if she wasn't missing too much kendo practice because of him that she, reluctantly, had started to go a bit less.
Kazuto liked that. He was happy, despite how ashamed he felt (Seeing as the younger girl seemed to have taken the news about their true relationship much better than he had done), of all the time they spent talking, he asking for all she had done in the last years while she simply started idly chatter with him, seemingly content with that.
She never asked him how things had gone or what happened while he was in Sword Art Online. He was grateful for that, in a way. While he had made some good friends along the way, remembering Aincrad mainly brought back a feeling of loneliness.
Kirito the Black Swordsman had been a Solo Player from the beginning to the end, after all. Even if he sometimes ventured with others in some odd situations, that didn't change the fact that most of the time he would be alone somewhere in a dangerous Dungeon or in the dark fields, late at night. Even after he started living above Agil's shop in Algade during the last months, he could still felt the crushing sensation of facing every day by himself, the confident act he put on most of the time being but a mask to protect himself from others.
The last time he dropped it was with the Black Cats. With Sachi. And he had to lie about something else to do so, which had resulted in the darkest tragedy of his life.
His little sister's constant company helped him both to forget the loneliness and to calm himself from his sudden and unexplainable changes. Especially because, for some reason, he was unable to hear HER thoughts.
The black-haired boy wasn't sure why it happened only with her, as she also seemed affected by whatever 'trick' didn't let others see that his body was in perfect health, but he felt very relieved for that. He wasn't sure how he would have dealt with hearing what she really thought about him. The gamer knew he would felt devastated to discover she was only being so nice to him because she pitied what he had been through or something…
…though to be fair, I think we all know he would probably have reacted in an even more dramatic way if he had known the real reason.
"Onii-chan? Are you done?" came Suguha's voice from outside his room, as if thinking about her had summoned the young kendoka to call for him. "W-we need to get going if we're going to catch the next bus."
"Ye-yeah, I'm done, Sugu. Wait for me!" hastily answered the gamer while heading towards the door and quickly opening it, coming face to face with his adoptive sister, who squeaked in surprise and took a step back, blushing fiercely. "Sorry, I was kind of lost in thought about finally leaving this place…"
"O-oh, that's okay, it's only natural." nodded Suguha with a smile before, to his surprise, grabbing his hand and starting to lead him down the hallway. "You will see how you feel much better once we arrive home! I have been cleaning your room to make sure you feel as if nothing has…!"
"Uhm…Sugu? I-I don't really need you to hold my hand, you know?" awkwardly commented Kazuto while looking away. "I'm not going to lose my way from here to the entrance…"
"Eh?" blinked the young kendoka in confusion before looking down at where she was firmly grasping his hand, squeaking once again as she let go and her face burned crimson. "So-sorry, I didn't mean to do that!"
"I-it's okay, it wasn't a big deal…"
Even though he said that, the truth was that the black-haired boy had felt more embarrassed than anything else because of the closeness in which his adoptive sister had dragged him by holding his hand. He was keenly aware (A bit more than he was comfortable with admitting) that Suguha had grown a lot during his time trapped in the virtual world, and it was quite obvious that his precious 'little sister' was well on the way of becoming a stunningly beautiful teenager.
It didn't help that the closest contact he had ever had with girls were things like walking side by side with Silica through Floria, holding Lisbeth's hand the night they were trapped in that cave or sleeping beside Asuna under that tree in the field that day. He did his best not to think about Sachi, because that would only bring memories he had done his best in trying to cope with, of course.
The point, though, was that he wasn't used to interacting with the opposite sex outside 'special situations' (Meaning fighting on the Front Lines or unexpected Quests), at least not without trying to 'act like Kirito', and he wasn't sure if he wanted to continue doing that now. Between whatever the hell had caused SAO to abruptly end and the strange 'powers' he seemed to have gained, he really did want to try and act more like a normal person now that he was back in the real world…
"B-by the way, Onii-chan, did you manage to communicate with your friends fro-from the…game?" awkwardly asked the young kendoka, trying to change the subject but also unsure if she should be bringing that up.
"Oh…yeah, more or less." sighed the black-haired boy while staring at the ceiling for a moment. "Though I could only talk with them for a bit because they're still recovering…"
To be honest, only the act of actually contacting his friends had been a nightmare in itself. It took several days, probably because of the mess that the unexpected release of the SAO Players had caused, before the government sent any agents asking questions to that hospital. After that, convincing the one that came to check if he knew something about what had happened (Which he didn't) to get him the contact information for the Players he had known as 'Agil', 'Lisbeth', 'Silica', 'Klein' and 'Asuna' (Though he hesitated a bit before asking that last one) took a great amount of pleading for his part, as the man had informed him they were extremely busy trying to investigate what the cause of the mysterious incident that ended the Death Game had been. Even when he managed to convince the agent, it still took almost a week before he actually got the information.
It was what came after that what he had been dreading: Actually calling them. Didn't help that he had to try several times for a couple of them, given that they (Like every other SAO Survivor except him, probably) were still undergoing treatment to recover from the ordeal, which would still take them months.
He needed three tries before managing to get a hold of Klein (Or Ryoutarou, as he now knew he was really called), but he had never feel gladder of hearing the samurai wannabe's lousy, even if a bit weak, voice. He had been happy for him to hear that all his friends, who had been part of his guild, Fuurinkazan, were also safe and sound in the same hospital he was.
Contacting Silica (Aka Keiko) had turned out being much more awkward. Especially because, when he had managed to do so, it had been the serious voice of the young girl's father who had answered him, demanding why an unknown boy was trying to talk with his daughter. Hearing the Beast Tamer's embarrassed screams for the man to give her the phone had both warmed his heart and helped him feel more like his 'old self' again, especially as Ayano Tetsuhiko had apparently been quickly defeated by a thrown pillow from his daughter, who had then quickly proceeded to apologize to him on the man's behalf endless times. He had chuckled and told her it was no big deal, and that she should be happy of having such a caring father, also mentioning how happy he was of knowing she was okay. Her stuttering as he easily imagined her face burning in that way it did whenever they were alone (Which he had freshly in his mind since they had celebrated her 14th birthday together in the 35th Floor the past month), for reasons he never understood, had put him at ease, even as he wished that she got better quickly and decided to cut the call short before Keiko's father got worried or made his recovering daughter shout too much.
When he had called Liz (Rika in real life), Kazuto had been expecting many things, but definitively not that the girl almost seemed to collapse in relief through the phone, thanking everything that he was okay. She had then quickly recovered and told him with an embarrassed voice that she had been extremely worried for her friends when what she described as 'the world screaming and everything breaking down' had happened and she woke up, and that she was happy that her 'best client' was okay. This made the gamer smile again, remembering how he had actually been with the girl less than a week before the unexpected end of the game, to upgrade the beautiful sword she herself had crafted for him some time ago, and how she had feared that the bond that connected them through it would soon be lost, given how Dark Repulser was very close to reaching its Upgrade Limit. He had dispelled such, for him, silly fears and told her that such a thing would never happen. When he had brought that up with a cheerful tone, however, the black-haired boy had been confused hearing her suddenly shouting things about 'Idiot!' and 'Don't bring up things like that on the phone!' in a strangely embarrassed tone, before telling him he should better also contact Asuna and fast. He had been kind of awkward to admit that he was actually putting that off for the very end because he wasn't sure how the girl, which he was sure only put up with him because of his usefulness as a Front Liner, as everything he did seemed to grate on her nerves, was going to react now that they were free. At hearing that, the blacksmith had fallen silent before answering with a cryptic 'I see…' and then hanging up herself, as if she had much to think about.
The confusion from that conversation had quickly turned into something very different when he contacted Agil, Andrew on real life, and the man had almost shouted in a worried tone if he was hurt or something, apparently not believing he was alive. When he had asked the reason of this, he had felt something cold run down his back at the bald man describing the 'phenomenon' that he and Asuna had witnessed happening to his Avatar. After the black-haired boy told him that he didn't remember any of that and then told him to take care, he had finished the call and, after a moment of hesitation, dialed the number of the last person he wanted to talk with.
It took him more tries than any of the others, as if the line was heavily occupied, but he truly wasn't expecting for Asuna of all people to almost burst into tears the moment she heard his voice through the phone. It had taken him almost a minute, with the girl ignoring the voices of people in the background apparently demanding why was she crying, which he thought may have been her family, before she embarrassedly reverted to her 'KoB Sub-commander' persona and told him that she was happy that whatever the hell happened hadn't hurt him. After some awkward conversation and she inquiring for a moment if he had talked to Liz, the chestnut-haired girl had finally been forced to end the call, after telling him they would talk later.
With all of that finished and ignoring his small surprise at Asuna apparently having been so affected by the fact that he may have died, the much more calmed gamer had arrived at a couple of conclusions.
One, it would probably be good for him if he tried to reconnect with the few friends he had made in SAO now that he was back in the real world, even if that went against this previous lonely lifestyle (Which he was now starting to loathe). And two, there was a very good chance that whatever the hell had ended Sword Art Online out of Kayaba Akihiko's plans was also related to the strange 'powers' his body had apparently gained.
Kazuto had never been one to believe in things like the supernatural or such, but between his unexplainable blacking out, the new state of his body that no one seemed able to notice but him, his ability to hear people thoughts (Or something along those lines) and now the event Asuna and Agil had described as 'a skull with tentacles made out of ethereal energy' exploding from his avatar before all hell broke loose, he was considering that perhaps 'something' that science and common sense couldn't explain may have done something to him, ending Sword Art Online in the process.
It was a crazy thing to think, yeah, but it made as much sense as how the driver of the bus where he and Suguha were getting into at that moment was debating between buying a new TV or an S&M set for him and his wife. Quickly clamping down on his strange power once again and telling his suddenly confused sister that his face wasn't reddening because he was feeling sick, he decided that he urgently needed to find a way to keep that particular ability under control, fast.
The black-haired boy really didn't want to deal with hearing things, especially things other people would prefer to never see the light of day, all the time…
Staring silently at the ceiling of his own room, Kazuto tried once again to get some sleep without success.
It had been a couple of hours since he had gotten back home and, after eating some sandwiches with his little sister and talking for a bit, he had told her he was going to try and rest a bit, to get used to not being in the hospital anymore. She had quickly nodded and told him to call her if he needed anything, but he had reassured her it wouldn't be needed.
Now, however, he was starting to think that he may need to retract his words, seeing as he was feeling extremely restless in that moment and talking to the young kendoka would probably be the only thing that could calm him down.
The black-haired boy was having to do a conscious effort to not hear the 'voices' coming from the people of their neighborhood, only the sweet silence coming from the house around him (Which he had missed much more than he thought) stopping him from screaming and telling everyone to 'shut up'. It didn't help that he felt as if he was brimming with energy and not tired in the slightest, something that he had sadly noticed since he woke up with whatever 'change' had happened to him.
Back in SAO, he would have easily admitted that, when the time didn't require otherwise, he liked to be a lazy person. Making excuses to take sudden naps at every chance he got when he wasn't grinding or fighting on the Front Lines was something he would often do.
Now, though, he found himself waking up feeling ready to do…something, anything, with just the bare minimum of sleep. He had spent several days just walking around his room when there was no one around in the morning just because of this, almost feeling like a caged animal without anything to do. Even being back in his room, where he would usually connect to the internet and look something up or play games when he was bored in the past, didn't help him at all. The gamer wasn't sure if it was because of Sword Art Online or something else, but he really didn't feel in the mood for playing anything at that moment. Weirdly enough, though, he wasn't feeling a need to start running around the street or practice some kind of sport either. Whatever had happened to him didn't seem to have changed that side of him that didn't really like unnecessary physical effort, thankfully.
It was…something very difficult to put into words. Kazuto knew he wanted to do something, but he wasn't sure of WHAT it was. The only thing he knew is that the urge to do so was growing, and he was scared he would explode or something if he didn't do it.
"Dammit!" cursed the black-haired boy while sitting on his bed, glaring at the wall with annoyance. "This wouldn't be so much difficult if I had a User Guide or something for this!"
The moment the words left his mouth, something inside the gamer seemed to pulse, as if reacting to an unseen command, and a strange, long and rectangular 'screen' manifested itself in front of him.
[Guide to being an Ancient Ruler]
1-The Aether Core: Why should you love it?
2-Mysteries: First Steps to mess with the roots of [Reality]
3-Cosmic Forging: Stars are always better than Metal.
4-Soul Reading: The fine art of peering into mortal spirits.
5-Aether Projection: Or how to give shape to your will in the World (Aka 'No, you're not crazy. All of this is an example of this last line based on your mind's interpretation of data').
Kazuto needed several seconds of dumbly staring at the phenomenon before remembering that real life WASN'T supposed to have any kind of virtual screens and squeaking in shock as he fell backward on his bed, the 'screen' following him. Trying to calm down his wild heartbeat, the black-haired boy stared with wide eyes at the impossible phenomenon in front of him for several seconds. Then, he pinched his cheek, hard, and when only a dull pain was his reward he was forced to accept that no, he wasn't dreaming, and he probably wasn't hallucinating either.
"What the hell…?" muttered the gamer while, hesitantly, touching the first of the 'Menus' that had appeared for him.
A wall of text materialized before the blinking teenager, lines and lines written in Japanese about the 'Source of the Ancient Power', the power that could shake galaxies, the energy that stabilized the Great Void and more things like that.
Most of it went over Kazuto's head, for it would probably require careful reading and studying to even remotely understand. He could, however, get the gist of it: This 'Aether Core' thing was apparently the power source of a being so powerful it could probably destroy the entire galaxy and that could mess up with the laws of physics as if they were just empty words told by an adult to a kid. Kind of like the Gods from some old space-based videogames of old or straight out from weird sci-fi story.
And that thing was now inside his soul, growing again after having spent most of its power. It even had a small 'Countdown before Full Capacity' window at the side, but he was unable to make heads or tails of what the numbers and symbols on it meant.
Now then, this would have been the point where the boy worried that he was truly going insane, especially because apparently he not only had the powers of some sort of super divine alien, but also because he had somehow forced them to give him a 'How to be a God for Dummies' kind of manual. And yet…
Taking a deep breath to try and calm himself, the gamer glared at the manual's screen for a moment before concentrating.
"I want to…See the Aether Core"
Kazuto opened his eyes. This time, he was unable to hold back his screen, for he was suddenly floating in the middle of what seemed to be outer space…but something on his head told him it was actually some weird representation of his soul. Calming down, he looked around…and felt his jaw dropping as his eyes widening.
There, burning brightly, the most amazing and beautiful thing he had ever seen shone with a light like no other.
It was currently almost as big as the Earth, which meant the black-haired by felt like an ant compared to it, but, despite this, a part of him once again told him that it was absolutely nothing compared to the true reach of its power.
Power that it was recovering each second, by the way. Almost as if part of the manual was being repeated and inserted inside his brain, he understood how the beautiful thing was gathering Cosmic Energy, the greatest source of power in the Universe, which only the Ancient Rulers had access to. Every second that his small, human heart beat, the Aether Core, HIS Aether Core, drew the power of the very Universe into his soul, little by little, growing and restoring itself. It would still need years before once again having all of its Universal-Threatening power…but it was just days away from being enough to destroy the world if he so wanted.
And the thing was inside of him. He, Kirigaya Kazuto, turned 16 years old less than a month ago, had enough power to force Earth to explode from the inside out.
The gamer managed to stop himself from hyperventilating just because of how weird and stupid it looked to do so while floating in a massive void. Taking a deep breath, he managed to recover enough clarity of mind to tell himself that he was NOT going to do such a thing, and that he had no sinister or evil impulses to do anything like that, so he could at least be sure that anything he did would be out of his own free will. And he didn't want to destroy the world: He (And everyone he cared about) lived in it.
He wasn't feeling any sudden urges for world domination either, so that was a plus, even as he more or less started to understand things better.
If he wasn't going insane, something he dearly hoped, and this all was actually real, then it meant that a 'Space God', or whatever this 'Ancient Ruler' had been, had given him his powers, and in the process ended SAO.
That he had done so out of his own free will or in any kind of positive situation was a thought that, sadly, the black-haired boy didn't entertain for even a second. Whatever had that much power probably did not care for beings like him, and if what Asuna and Agil told him about the 'phenomenon' of the skull-thing (Which he assumed had been the aforementioned God) being in pain was anything to go by, not to mention the fact that its power seemed to be almost exhausted before the incident, then the thing had probably been severely hurt (And he shuddered thinking about WHAT would be needed to hurt a being with such power) and had been trying to do something to him, maybe possess him or something along those lines, before his attempt backfired and he ended up stuck in SAO instead of him. The end of the Death Game was probably a side-effect of the alien-divinity trying to break free or dying. Kazuto dearly hoped it was the latter, because, powers or not, he didn't want to deal with a creature that was probably as ancient as the Universe itself, who would without a doubt be scheming how to recover his lost glory in ways that his simple human mind couldn't even hope to understand…
Meanwhile, on the virtual sea, the Eternal Conqueror's consciousness sneezed. He took a moment to appreciate the impossibility of such a thing happening, given his current pseudo-virtual existence, before simply ignoring it and continuing floating randomly while drowning of self-pity, cursing his life all the way, even as several figures floated happily after him.
Back on the inner-projection of his soul, the gamer took a moment to once again gaze towards the imposing existence that was the Aether Core. He, somehow, knew that his human mind should be unable to properly see the true form of the magnificent source of primal power, fueled by the purest Cosmic Energy, and that was more of a metaphysical manifestation of an ethereal essence, basically bonded with his very soul.
Yet, for some reason, he saw it as a massive 12-pointed star (As in the form, not the celestial body) made of white-blue light. The boy supposed it was his mind's way of understanding the thing.
Finally deciding this was enough, Kazuto closed his eyes and concentrated, willing himself back to reality. When his eyes opened and he saw his room around him, he allowed himself a moment of hesitation to think if everything had been nothing but his imagination going wild…
…before noticing he was floating. As in, he was sitting in midair, almost a meter over his bed, without anything that could logically explain was he was violating the laws of physics.
The moment he realized this, however, he quickly fell back-first on his bed, contained a small 'Hmph!' as he crashed on it. His eyes stayed fixed on the ceiling for several seconds.
"…well, I think there go my hopes of finally having a normal life." idly muttered the gamer before shaking his head and opening the 'Manual' once again.
If he was going to have the powers of a nigh-omnipotent being, he should at least understand how the fuck they worked. Not that he was planning on actually using them, but as that American comic's superhero would say 'Power and responsibility' or something like that, the boy honestly couldn't remember. He preferred reading manga and playing RPGs, after all.
At that moment, entering the house's bathroom, Suguha allowed herself a moment of worrying about her adopted brother before sighing and starting to undress.
As she prepared to take a bath, the young kendoka bit her lips as her thoughts once again drifted towards Kazuto's smiling form, talking with her from his bed in the hospital. Being honest, a part of her had almost hoped that the confusing feelings she had been having since she was told they weren't actually siblings would go away when he woke up and the idea of him dying no longer haunted her every day. She had been VERY wrong.
Not only that had not happened, but her feelings had actually become stronger than before. She could still remember the anguish she felt when, after whatever the hell happened that made the boy's Nerve Gear explode was over and knocked her out, she stood up and saw his unmoving body lying on the bed, the smell of something burnt filling the air because of the electricity overload. Suguha still remembered that, the moment she saw his eyes opening, she had almost been tempted to just never let go of him again. The long and pleasant talks they shared the days after that had only made her fall deeper, seeing the radical change the boy had experienced after being trapped in that Death Game for so long, not only talking happily with her but also seeming to actively enjoy her company. The young kendoka had been able to notice how he would sometimes be looking towards the window or the ceiling with a bored expression until the moment she came into the room, when he would then turn to her with his face illuminating in one of those smiles that made her heart beat faster.
The girl couldn't deny it anymore. She was hopelessly and totally in love with her adopted brother/cousin. The problem, besides the most glaring ones, was that she was sure Kazuto would never look at her that way. She was just his 'precious imouto', as he had taken to call her lately. Maybe the best she could do was to just accept his new much more caring self and suppress those feelings until they went away, as they would surely do…
Her train of thought was suddenly interrupted as her fingers touched the small mark she had between her breasts, just out of sight while she was wearing clothes (Except her pajama), but now open to the world to see. Looking at it with mild discomfort and telling herself it was just a scar she must have gotten from kendo without realizing it, Suguha tried to ignore the impulse of wanting to be with Kazuto forever no matter what that she got the moment her hand touched the mark, making her whole body shiver in a strangely pleasant way. It was just her imagination, same that it had been when she thought she saw some sort of ethereal energy surrounding her brother's head and hitting her right there just before falling unconscious in the hospital. After all, she would have gotten a hole through her clothes if that had been the case, but they had been perfectly intact. Suguha just needed to calm down, get those silly thoughts out of her mind and remind herself that she shouldn't do anything to try and alienate Kazuto now that she finally had him back, at her side, where he belonged and she could be sure he was happy…
As her mind lost itself in that train of thought while she headed to the shower, the young kendoka absentmindedly continued caressing the small mark in her chest.
The blue-white 12-pointed star looked harmless enough over her beautiful skin…
Shaking her head as her father finally left the room, wishing her goodnight, Yuuki Asuna let her head fall back on her bed and stared tiredly at the ceiling of her hospital room, feeling extremely tired.
It was not only physical exhaustion because of her deteriorated body, though. It was also mental tiredness that came from having to deal with all the problems with her family since the moment she woke up.
While she had never felt happier of seeing her mother, father and brother once again, part of her had been unable to fully enjoy her freedom without knowing what had happened to HIM, her heart feeling strangely hurt when she remembered the boy in black and how his body had broken down before that…thing came out from him.
The moment she had received his call and heard her voice once again, she had finally been able to stop feeling guilty for all the times she had shouted or scolded the swordsman since they met each other on Floor 1. Kirito was alive. He was okay.
And she had only needed to think he had died horribly just before they got out of the Death Game to realize she had a crush on the stupid and lazy boy.
Life really sucked sometimes.
Her relationship with the Black Swordswoman had always been a bit…'weird', to say the least. In a very roundabout way, you could have called them 'friends', she supposed. After the fight against the 1st Floor Boss and the events that labeled him as 'The Beater', the boy in black had tried to isolate himself from most of the players. While she still saw him from time to time, especially for one odd adventure or another at which they seemed to be drawn together, she spent most of that time trying to not find a reason to be annoyed or murder him. Kirito was just that bad with social interaction, even if she would never deny you could always rely on him.
Then, the more Floors they unlocked, the less she saw the boy. Given that, even if some called them 'partners' sometimes, they never went out of their way to even stay in the same place that was only natural, but she would be lying if she said that she didn't find herself missing the swordsman's presence from time to time, as it was the only person that she was really in friendly terms with on Aincrad (Besides Argo, but the info-broker was perhaps even more unable to stay in one place than the black-haired boy). When the catastrophe of the 25th Floor Boss happened and Heathcliff came to her, asking her to join the recently formed Knights of Blood, she had accepted almost without hesitation, remembering the words Kirito had told her after the defeat of Illfang.
She wanted to clear the game, survive and go back home. While it was true that she hadn't been expecting for them to literally become the best guild in the game, she had really wanted to try and make sure everyone did their best to keep moving forward.
That was when she started to lost contact with Kirito the most, though. Between her new duties as Sub-Commander and the little free time she had, not to mention how he never was in the same place for long, sometimes it would take weeks or even months before she knew anything about him. And when the rare event of them meeting up for real actually happened, something crazy was usually around the corner, like that time with the 'Murder Case inside the Safe Zone'. As a result, most of her interactions with the Black Swordsman had been reduced to Boss Strategy meetings and the fights themselves.
She wasn't sure how to feel about that, back then. Certainly, because of how she was raised, Asuna had never had any 'real' friends to speak of, male ones even less. She could only vaguely remember the interactions she had with others on her private grade school, and she had gone to a Girls-Only Middle School that her mother had chosen specifically. It was such a strict place that she had barely time to socialize with other girls, almost always studying and worrying about her future, as her mother had taught her to do. Outside of some party at which her mother was invited and she tagged along, which meant other adults did the same with their own children, interactions with people her age were almost non-existent. Because of that, when she met Kirito, she had the hardest time trying to truly understand the boy. Didn't help that his stupid attitude and his usually careless acts drove her nuts most of the time. Or that he would never talk about that period of time, months before the end of the 1st year, when he totally dropped off the mark and not even Argo knew where to find him. The girl nicknamed the Rat apparently knew what that had been about, but despite her clear worry she had never told Asuna what it was. 'Client Secrecy' or something like that.
Releasing a tired sigh, the chestnut-haired girl glared silently at the window, looking towards the setting sun. She had had a very annoying argument with her Mother a while ago, after she was told the news of how her 'fiancée', Sugou Nobuyuki, had apparently died in an accident indirectly related to the end of SAO. While she didn't hate the man and most certainly didn't wish for him to die, she had never truly liked him either, always finding something 'weird' with that smile he usually wore and the polite tone with which he talked with her, but he had tolerated him and always smiled back because it was what she, as the daughter of an influencing family, should do.
She was done with putting up with that anymore, though. Perhaps it was the shock of how things had ended so abruptly, but her mind was still in her 'Asuna the Flash' persona and refused to turn itself off. For all intents and purposes, even if she was now unable to move from a bed and didn't have her trusted rapier anymore, she was still feeling and thinking as the Sub-Commander of the KoB. Hence, when she had outright declared in front of her family, as they discussed if they should assist to Sugou's funeral, that she would be the one to choose who she wanted to marry in the future, indirectly implying that it not necessarily would have to be someone from upper society, all hell had broken loose. Between her mother trying to make her 'see reason' and her father and brother asking if she had met someone like that inside the Death Game, things had gotten quite ugly for most of the evening. While she was sure she had managed to bring the two men to understand her, she knew that it wouldn't be so easy with the woman that had raised her. She didn't care, though. She was done with letting others control her life. That was the reason she became a Front Liner in the first place, the reason she joined the Knights of Blood.
Whatever she may felt for Kirito aside (And she still wasn't sure if the boy would even react positively to her feelings, given the random, if friendly, interactions they had had till then), she would make sure that any important decision in her life was hers and hers alone from now on.
Idly, she wondered what Commander Heathcliff was doing right at that moment, if he was also having difficulties adjusting back to real life. She could really use some advice from her wise superior in that moment, even if only to calm herself down and remind that she couldn't just out-scream her mother as a solution. After all, the man nicknamed 'The Paladin' and unofficially known as Aincrad's strongest player had always known what to do in all situations…
Meanwhile, in a poorly illuminated room, Kayaba Akihiko opened his eyes, feeling like crap and with the strange realization that he couldn't move his legs, while his arms were strapped to whatever the hell he was laying in. Suddenly, an unexpected fluorescent light shone over him, forcing the man to squint his eyes as he saw a dark figure looming over him.
"…Rinko?"
"Hi there, Aki-kun." for some reason, hearing the nickname that the woman hadn't used to refer to him since college sent a shiver of terror down Kayaba's back. "You have enjoyed playing with the lives of many for too long, and it's time you face your punishment. Now, let's play a little game…"
"…di-did you just indirectly quote an American movie from two decades ago? A-and where did you get that whip?! We're in the middle of nowhere!"
"Now, now, Aki-kun, are you sure THAT is what you should be worried about?"
In the middle of nowhere, no one could hear the most wanted man of the planet scream…
Back ion her hospital room, Asuna blinked, wondering why she had just felt as if she could almost hear her old superior's voice, before shrugging and letting that train of thought go. Heathcliff always knew what he did and was able to handle any situation, he was probably perfectly okay right now.
Nodding to herself, the chestnut-haired girl came to a decision: She would do her best to recover while trying to sort out her life and make sure that her family understood how much she had grown up while trapped in Aincrad. When that was done…well, maybe she would look for Kirito and talk to him…as friends, for old time's sake, yeah. After all, he probably didn't see her as anything but that, so she could just let the silly crush she had to vanish after seeing and befriending him for real. She was also planning to meet with Liz when it was all over, so there was nothing strange with that.
Having decided and convinced herself of that, Asuna prepared to try and get some sleep…when the ringing of her phone made her eyes snap open and reach for the device at her bed's side like a possessed.
If anyone would have asked, she would have totally denied she was hoping it was Kirito calling. That would have been silly. She only wished to not make the person calling wait, as that would be rude. Really.
What she wasn't expecting, though, was that it was a video call from a Private Number. Confused, the chestnut-haired girl answered…and came face to face with the curious eyes of a little girl with long black hair, staring silently at her.
"…nope, you're not the one Papa is searching for. Sorry for the trouble." apologized the unknown girl before finishing the call.
"…eh?" was all that came out of the ex-second in command of the KoB.
Shooting her consciousness back through the internet, the MHCP-001, aka Yui, sighed in disappointment as she headed towards where her Papa and little sisters were waiting for her. Truly, finding the one that had stolen Papa's powers was showing itself to be a very difficult task.
Not only there was the fact that the SAO Servers had been physically destroyed, which meant there was no way of getting the account data of anyone back, but also that her Papa had absolutely no data at all about the Player in question besides his looks. The poor cosmic being didn't even know which hospital the boy had been in, so she had been essentially going blindly through the list of 6193 Sword Art Online Survivors. The fact that most of them were currently unable to be contacted or localized because of their recovering status only made things even more difficult, not to mention the fact that she didn't had any real hardware to back up her search, meaning the things she could do to actually enforce the issue were limited to whatever cyber-café's computer or similar machine in which she would temporary house her consciousness while she was working, before quickly abandoning it at the smallest hint of anyone detecting her hacking. Papa had stressed the need of not drawing unnecessary attention to himself while he was 'powerless', after all.
The small AI knew that it would be easier if her 'sisters 'could help her with everything or even if her 'father' himself helped (He HAD absorbed the Cardinal System, after all), but between the fact that the other Mental Health Care Programs were still trying to adapt to their new free and activated states, most having little more mental ability than a little kid, and that their Papa lacked proper hardware, was still learning about how the world worked (Being from another Multiverse was apparently hard, whatever that meant) and also still kind of depressed for losing his powers, she was truly the only one that could keep their crazy 'family' afloat.
Yui's line of thought was suddenly interrupted by a familiar voice calling out to her.
"Ah! Yui-nee, you're back!" happily shouted the figure of a teenage girl with a stunning body, lavender hair and pink-red eyes, wearing what seemed like light armor made to emphasize her figure instead of protecting her, allowing anyone who cared to see the two love spots in her left breast. "Everyone, Onee-sama is back!"
"Hi there, Strea-nee. I'm back." smiled the younger-looking AI towards her little sister, even if the SAO Avatar she was using (Which she apparently had dragged with them by sheer dumb luck when they escaped from the collapsing Servers) suggested the contrary. "Was there any problem while I was gone?"
"None whatsoever! I have been good and taken care of everyone like I promised you!" boasted the red-eyed girl while puffing out her chest.
Being honest, Yui was happy that Strea had been in 'Standby Mode' back in SAO, as the MHCP-002 was the one directly meant to replace her as the primary observer if something went wrong, instead of totally deactivated like the other ones. Perhaps she still acted a bit 'childish' most of the time, but she at least had some basic awareness of the world and of human interaction. It was why she, as the 'second oldest sister', was in charge of things when she was out.
While it was a shame only two out of sixteen of the psychologists-programs were actually able to do something useful in their current situation (Curse you for making Cardinal lock them, Kayaba Akihiko!), the black-haired little girl was happy that they could all have at least escaped. Truly, they owed their Papa everything for saving them!
"Nee-sama!
"It's Yui-neesama, she's back!"
"Yay, Yui-nee, yahoo!"
"Did you bring gifts?!"
"Heheh, calm down everyone!" happily called Yui as she was surrounded by several overenthusiastic small figures. "And sorry Tomoe, I didn't have any time to bring anything…"
Wincing slightly at the small Corus of depressed 'Owwws', the 'older' of the MHCPs looked over her other 14 little sisters with a caring smile. While she and Strea had already an outward avatar with which identify themselves, predetermined in her case and an avatar in the other AI's one, the others had lacked one and, given that they currently were unable to actually access any kind of avatar generator, they had had to settle for a mix of both Yui's and the older-looking girl's data for their 'looks', at least temporarily.
Currently, they all looked exactly like her, but with Strea's hair color and eyes, wearing black dresses instead of her white one.
"Hey girls, let Yui-nee alone, okay?" chided Strea in a tone that she probably thought was stern, but was in fact very playful. "She just got back!"
"Strea-nee is right, everyone!" shouted a serious looking one while stopping at her aforementioned sister's side, arms crossed. "We shouldn't distract Onee-sama from her important task-thing for daddy, we should continue studying to make sure our data is all…good and shiny for helping her out!"
"Tha-thanks for your words, Haru, but it's not a problem…" sweatdropped Yui while looking towards the MHCP-005, even as the older-looking girl at her side petted her head, making the younger AI pout. "After all, I always have time for my cute sis…Ivy, what are you doing to Eve?"
"Eve-chan is not talking to me again!" pouted the MHCP-003 while carrying the silent form of 004 on her back, which looked very awkward as they were basically identical. "So I'm going to carry hear around until she talks to me!"
For all answer, Eve simply stared at Yui from over her sister's shoulder and winked before once again pretending not to care. The oldest of the AIs sighed.
Being an older sister was harder than being a psychologist-program unable to do anything.
"Nee, Yui-oneesama…" called the MHCP-006 while grabbing her dress. "Papa is watching anime again and he won't pay attention to me…"
"He never does, though!" cheerfully chimed 007 from just behind her, her hand holding that of another of the AIs.
"Yep, dad never pay attention to anyone but Yui-nee!" confirmed 008 with a bright smile.
The other 8 MHCPs happily agreed with childish laughs, their minds still too underdeveloped to actually interact. It kind of depressed Yui, because they had been forced to get data to actually let her little sisters 'grow' at a very slow pace. With their current situation, they couldn't afford anything else without risking being discovered. In fact, she should probably feel grateful that they had managed to get 8 of them (Counting herself and Strea) more or less in a working mindset in little less than a month.
"Now, now, Yin, Yan, don't be mean with Tomoe." chided Yui while wagging a finger at the inseparable AIs, which laughed happily before skipping away, quickly followed by the 8 less developed MHCPs. Honestly, those two spent too much time with Strea for their own good…"Wait, what was that about Papa and anime?"
"Yeah, he's at it again." complained the older-looking of the girls before crossing her arms under her breasts and pouting. "Doesn't help that he ignores me when I try to tell him it's no good for him to watch so much television! Go and talk some sense into him, Yui-nee!"
Sighing while nodding in acceptance, and after managing to convince Tomoe to let go of her dress (Poor girl was a bit too attached to her), Yui floated away from her sisters through the small virtual space where they currently resided (Which were the Servers of the main building of a magazine about PCs), reaching the part furthest from them and staring upwards with a frown and her hands on her hips.
"Papa, you should stop watching all of that anime all the time. It's not good for your depression. At least watch something that's not called trash by most of the reviews found online!"
Scowling despite not really having eyebrows (Or eyes for that matter), the massive sphere of holo-screens and data that was how the consciousness of the Great One looked after having absorbed the Cardinal System looked down towards his 'daughter', stopping watching his fill of Naruto's Filler Episodes.
-Yui. Please, leave me alone. I'm not in the mood for this…-
"But Papa, all of that it's going to damage your data processor, ancient mind or not!" complained the oldest of the MHCPs while crossing her arms. "You should also stop ignoring the rest, you know? I can't be the only one who can talk some sense into you all the time!"
The Eternal Conqueror suppressed the too human urge to groan and also the one of having arms just to facepalm. Idly, he wondered how he had gone from being a star-slayer to a chronically depressed entity of data, hidden in the same hardware that people used to talk about the importance of a good and balanced computer (The latest article by that Kirigaya Midori was pretty interesting, though) and being scolded by an artificial creature made of data and programmed to act like a human.
If he had to be honest, he didn't dislike Yui. In fact, the non-human little girl was the only reason why he hadn't wasted away (More, that is) or tried to just erase himself and be done with it. While he had absolutely no experience about how to deal with kids (He was only used to people worshipping and, most recently, trying to destroy him), the Great One had to accept that the annoying insistence of the small program to help him out with everything was touching, in a way. Not to mention that she kept the bunch of other, crazier and much more annoying, 'girls' under control.
He was still very uncomfortable about the whole 'Papa' thing. He was the last of his species, and he had had the power to live for eons, so he had never really cared about offspring. Even the few times that he had bothered to 'create life' he hadn't done more than do so and then be done with it, moving on from the planet and forgetting about it.
Now, the Eternal Conqueror was stuck with Yui and her sisters. While he COULD just 'delete' them anytime he wanted, it would be akin to suicide for him, as the MHCPs were his only real connection with this world, given that they had the understanding he lacked to take advantage of his new 'abilities' as an entity made of data.
Not that he cared much for those, though. He didn't want anything else but continuing to drown on his pity, cursing everything in the Omniverse for how he could have fallen so low.
-Just leave me alone, please…-
"No can do! Besides, I have good news! I already checked out 445 more of the SAO Survivors today, so we have already checked a thousand!" happily informed the black-haired girl while raising her arms. "We will soon find the one who stole your powers, Papa!"
If he had lips, the Great One would probably have felt something tugging at the edge of them. He still couldn't believe that the small AI had taken on herself to actually find the human in which he had put his Aether Core before the massive catastrophe that reduced him to his current state. It was something that made putting up with her and the others almost bearable.
There was the fact that, even if she found the human, he had NO WAY of actually recovering his powers, unless the boy was stupid enough to actually be willing to use them and cheerfully allow him to take over his body. Which he was pretty sure he wouldn't, after having survived the 'Hell' that had apparently been this Sword Art Online thing in which he had been trapped (Why would any human do such a thing like trapping others in a virtual world for no apparent reason was beyond him, though). Despite having explicitly told this to Yui and the others when he was trying to have them to just 'Leave him alone', though, the oldest AI had just declared that she would still find a way to let him recover his powers. It was almost endearing to see, especially because 'the little girl' wasn't really programmed to act in such a way. Maybe whatever vestige he had left of power when he 'zapped' her to get out of the SAO Servers had given her something akin to a soul, though, and she had something shared it with the others.
Either way, it didn't really matter. Unless the too-human program found a machine that could be used to pump data directly into someone's brain or soul, he wouldn't have any real chance of recovering his powers…
"Yui-nee is right, dad!" came Strea's sudden voice from behind them, making both of them look towards the one the Great One dubbed as 'The Craziest One'. "We're going to find that damn thief that took away your powers! And when we do, heheheh…when we do, he will wish to never have been born…"
"…yeah, as Strea-nee says, we will take care of him, Papa." agreed Yui while shaking her head at her little sister's antics, but with a serious look on her face. "Whoever that boy is, he will wish to not have ever crossed you."
A part of the Eternal Conqueror almost felt the need of reminding the AIs that it had been, in fact, an accident that the human had ended up 'stealing' his powers…,but to be honest, he was just too pissed off with that boy for that, not to mention depressed. And so, with a metaphorical sigh, he turned once again his attention towards the series about ninjas that for some reason contradicted every definition of the word 'Ninja' he had found in the human dictionary.
It wasn't half-bad, but he had to accept that his oldest 'daughter' was right: The fillers were total shit.
"By the way, Yui-nee, have you considered changing your looks a bit when we manage to find a virtual environment compatible with our data for the others? You should try to look the part of the 'oldest' sister, after all!"
"Uh…the thought had never crossed my mind, but now that you say it that may not be so bad…"
"Yay! I already want to see Yui-nee all grown-up!"
"…the face you're making while saying that is triggering all my uneasy-sensors, Strea…"
…once again, the virtual entity in which the eons-old being had become decided to ignore the AIs' antics. In fact, he almost felt pity for the human thinking about whatever they had planned for him, even if there was no real or logical way of them to harm him by the limitations of their existence, even more if he counted that he now that HIS powers.
And like that, any small pity he had for him vanished, even as he let his attention snap back to the blonde ninja wearing an orange jumpsuit…
The moon was already out in the dark sky when Kirigaya Kazuto arrived at a simple conclusion.
"This…is hell…"
Suppressing the urge to scream, the black-haired boy looked towards the clock to see it was almost ten in the night. He had been reading the 'Manual' for his strange powers for hours…and he hadn't even finished the 'Chapter 1', the one explaining all the details and workings of his Aether Core.
He must have gone through more than 300 pages already, but there was still no end in sight! Even worse, everything was complex stuff that was very hard to understand, especially for someone who had lost two years of his normal education to fight for his life!
Closing the 'screen' in front of him with annoyance, the gamer decided he had had enough. After all, he was someone who learned more with actions than by reading stupid things. There had been hints to future chapters and of the base of how his powers worked all around the things he had read, so he should be fine.
With that line of thought in mind, Kazuto looked around his room from where he was sitting in front of his PC with 3 screens and realized how dark it was. Idly glancing towards the switch for the light at the other side of the room, an idea about an excellent way of testing his new abilities came to mind.
"Okay, this should be simply enough. There is no way I can screw this up, so let's see…Illuminate the Room!"
Suguha was just finished with cooking a small dinner mostly consisting on udon with some onigiris when she heard her brother scream from upstairs, panic clear in his voice. Dropping the last of the rice balls she was preparing as the smile she had while thinking of surprising him with a good meal vanished, the young kendoka sprinted towards the stairs and then to the boy's room, feeling her heart almost jumping out of her chest, fear gripping her.
Kazuto couldn't be hurt, no, not after all that had happened, not after he finally came back, back to her side…!
"Onii-chan, what's wrong?!" shouted the girl as she slammed the door open, her eyes quickly sweeping over the room and her fear growing as she smelled something burning. "Did…?!"
"Su-Sugu?!" came the gamer's startled voice as he turned around…from his half-melted PC, the look of despair on his face quickly changing to a panicked one as he saw his adoptive sister standing in the doorway. "I-I, it wasn't…!"
But Suguha was no longer hearing him, no. Her attention was totally focused on the small, unassuming-looking sphere of white light that was burning on his open right palm, slowly floating off his hand a couple of inches at it released a pale light that filled the whole room.
It seemed like a small ball of white fire that burned in as perfect sphere…but it wasn't that. It was something more. And it also gave a feeling of something 'dying', as if the warmth it emitted were only remnants of something once much greater.
"…Onii-chan…is that in your hand…a sun?" came the young kendoka's choking voice as she looked straight at the STAR burning on his brother's hands.
"Ehm…no. I-if we're being technical, this is just a Supercompressed White Dwarf." explained Kazuto with an uneasy voice, his mind clearly still in shock from having MELTED his precious computer by accidentally summoning a fucking mass of burning helium (Or something like that, he honestly couldn't remember) over it. "I-I don't have the power to create a functional star yet, not even to decompress this one, heh…"
"…oh."
On the doorway, the girl suddenly smiled and nodded, as if she had understood everything perfectly.
Then, she promptly stumbled backward and fell down, unconscious.
"Wha-what?! Sugu?! Shi-shit, hang in there!" quickly standing up, the black-haired boy quickly realized a small problem. "Fuck! What do I do with this thing?! I have to help Sugu! But…I don't know how to unsummon it…Go away! Vanish! Goodbye star! GAH! I should have read the whole manual!"
A little after that, Suguha's eyes opened as her consciousness abruptly returned, the girl's face reddening as she noticed a strong yet gentle hand caressing her cheek. Looking up confirmed the fact that it was, indeed, her brother looking down at her with a worried smile, and that he had at some point moved her to her room, for she was laying on her own bed.
"O-Onii-chan…"
"Thank heaven you're okay…" softly whispered the gamer as he then caressed her head, idly noticing the heat coming off from her face. "I wouldn't have forgiven myself if I had caused you to hurt yourself…especially seeing as we apparently still have a lot to tell each other, uh? I didn't even know you had started playing VRMMORPGs, you didn't seem the type…"
"E-eh?!" squeaked the young kendoka with wide eyes, quickly realizing that it was probable that Kazuto had seen her AmuSphere when he brought her into her room, discovering her 'secret'. "Wa-wait…that means Onii-chan must have…carried me here…bridal style…"
"So, Alfheim Online, uh?" commented the black-haired boy, ignorant of the girl's fantasies, as he looked up towards the massive poster of the game that Suguha had on her ceiling. "I'm kind of out of the VR loop because of SAO, but it seems very cool if you can fly by yourself…"
"I-I haven't played in weeks a-and the servers are currently down anyway…" muttered the girl as she snapped out of her daydream to look at her brother in shock. "Something about the man that ran it dying in an accident and them closing down temporarily as mourning or something…"
"Oh. That's bad, I mean, horrible…" awkwardly muttered the gamer while scratching the back of his head."
"…Onii-chan…I didn't dream that from before, right?" softly asked Suguha while looking nervously at him.
"No…you didn't." sighed Kazuto before raising his hand and letting it reach into 'Nowhere', making the young kendoka gasp as he brought forth the same burning white star from before to his hand. "This…this is real, Sugu."
"…beautiful…" whispered the girl as she looked at the white dwarf with entranced eyes, reaching forward to touch it before the boy grabbed her hand with his free one, fear filling his eyes. "Uh?!"
"A-are you crazy?! Don't touch it, that thing could literally disintegrate your hand! I'm only okay because of these senseless powers and…and…you don't have any idea what I'm talking about and I'm scaring you." groaned the gamer as he let go of his little sister's arm, the girl looking at him with a mix of worry and confusion. "I'm sorry, Sugu. It's just that, this has been driving me crazy since I got out of SAO and now I have involved you in it and almost hurt you without wanting, I still have no idea what I'm doing and I'm scared I'm going to make everything worse and…!"
Whatever else Kazuto wanted to say was silenced when Suguha reached forward and hugged him, shocking the boy and almost making him drop the mini-star. Blushing, the teenager was kindly aware of the heat coming from the young kendoka's soft body through her clothes, perhaps because of the situation or because his senses had also been amplified with whatever change his body had gone through.
"Shhh…it's okay, Onii-chan. I don't know what's going on, but whatever it is, you don't have to face it alone, okay?" comforted the girl with a soft smile, all the while trying to calm down the her raging heart and the inner squeals she was releasing at being so close to the boy she loved. "I'm here for you, and I will always be, so feel free to let me help you, okay?"
"Sugu…thanks." muttered the gamer with a grateful smile, stupidly missing the slightly-too-much feeling that his adoptive sister had put on the word 'always'. "I don't deserve to have such a great sister as you.
"C'mon, don't say that now." giggled Suguha while trying to contain her face from spontaneously combusting at the praise. "I was only…wait, what's that smell?"
Blinking, both teenagers finally seemed to notice the smell of something burning filling the room. Turning their gazes to the side, the Kirigaya siblings noticed how the star was no longer in Kazuto's hands. Looking up, they saw how the dwarf star had floated upwards at some point and it was in the process of burning a hole through the ceiling of Suguha's room, having already burned a nasty mark through her fairy-poster.
Several seconds of silence ensued even as the black-haired boy managed to stop the sphere of burning helium (Or something like that) and force it back into his hand.
"…I really should have finished reading the manual first." blankly commented the boy while averting his eyes from his sister's, the kendoka still staring at her destroyed ceiling.
It seemed that this was going to be a long night…
Lesson 1: Always read the manual first.
Next: Why you shouldn't give Life to inanimate objects.
Author's Notes: There! The plot of this silly thing has been more or less started :P! Hope you all enjoyed the silliness and the rest of it XP
Before anyone questions it, though: I do like Naruto, but I think we can all agree that the fillers are the worse to ever happen to anime, right? Right.
So, yeah, crazy happenings around, uh? If you're wondering about Kazuto's messed up attitude, it's kind of because he IS messed up. The anime doesn't show it as good as the novels, but his loner attitude and way of being when he was alone had messed him up real good before Asuna literally forced herself on him after his crazy stunt against the 74th Boss. Is at that point also when both their feelings start to truly develop and be accepted by each other, and I pulled him out of canon BEFORE any of that could happen. Therefore, this time he was brought out of the Death Game without warning and before Asuna became the center point of his life, which is was he's so 'lost' right now and has been relying so much in Sugu for company, as he has barely been able to contact his other 'friends'. This has also affected Asuna, as you can see, because she was forcefully dragged out of the game before she became 'housewife in love'-Asuna, and as such she's kind of stuck in the half-tsundere Sub-Commander that she was at that point (Which has already started to reflect in how she confronted her family, as you may have noticed). All of that is going to create interesting developments when the gang starts to come back together, especially now that the resident Divine-powered idiot is going to start messing around with his new 'powers' with the help of his precious imouto :D (Expect shit to get real at some point because of that…in a silly way XP)
And no, the Cosmic Powers of the 'Great One' don't really have a virtual-screen-like manual, but they have some sort of ingrained awareness that is meant to help the user. The reason they appeared like that is because that's how Kazu-kun understands them, as his gamer and recently SAO-released mind does O,O
Oh, and how many of you found ironic that Sugou's death was referenced many times in the chapter, yet there wasn't any party or lots of happiness because the characters didn't know him and/or his real bastard self XD?
Also, if anyone was wondering, the MHCPs aren't going to have especially big roles in the story besides Yui and Strea, so don't worry about remembering their names or who is who. Of course, the 6 that were kind of 'introduced' here will have a small part in it, mostly as side-characters…and also, anyone who reads my other fic may have noticed the bittersweet irony of those 6 being introduced like this…(For those who have no idea about Strea, she's a character from the SAO games, which are a separate universe that diverges from canon starting from the fight against Heathcliff in Floor 75, so you can Google her name to look images of her. For those of you who do know of her, the other MHCPs right now look the same that they did in the Last Battle of Hollow Fragment when they appear, just without the pointy limbs and the creepy visors, ok?)
And yes, they're all hiding on the servers of the company where Kazuto and Suguha's mother works. More irony, eh?
Well, that's all for now, I guess. Going back full power to One Punch-Gamer, after my exam is done of course, so don't expect an update of this for a while. I promise it will be filled with hilarity and craziness when it does, though =)!
Till next time, this is Saint, signing off!