Taken all I could take
And I cannot wait
We're wasting too much time
Being strong, holding on
Can't let it brings us down
My life with you means everything
So I won't give up that easily
I'll blow it away, blow it away
Can we make this something good?
Cause it's all misunderstood
Well, I'll try to do it right this time around

—Daughtry – It's Not Over

Link to Reality

Chapter II

November 7th 2024

ALO. That was the name of the game Kirito was currently stuck in. He'd learned that much just by walking down the street. It wasn't an in-depth knowledge he'd needed as he had no idea what the letters stood for, but it was more than he'd known when he'd first arrived about an hour ago.

Streetlights lit up the long and narrow alleys of the town, bathing the walkways in soft orange light. It created a warm, welcoming impression to everyone walking the dirt roads, much more so than what there'd be if the sun was up. Most of the buildings were two-storey high and occasionally you could pass by an alley not even noticing it unless you were specifically looking for it. The occasional inn one could pass by reminded Kirito of the cheaper ones in the lower levels in Aincrad, but that was where the resemblance ended. The town itself seemed to be several times the size of the Town of Beginnings back in SAO and while it was nothing odd to see people in the streets, none of them seemed to pay attention that it was night.

He'd thought about finding an inn, but after noticing that his status window had two different clocks and the one that displayed time in the real world was a little past four PM, he decided to take a better look around.

Another thing that struck him as odd and that was that he had yet to see a group of three or more people passing by. Most of them were either in groups of two or walking alone, but another thing they had in common was that they'd only stop for a short time, before spreading their wings and flying away.

Yes. Flying away.

He'd seen several people do that and now there was an irresistible urge inside him to try it out. Problem was that he didn't have any idea how.

He'd thought about consulting an in-game manual, but he knew from experience that those things could sometimes be so vague that they were hardly of help. In other words, there was one thing he could do to gain quick and simple information, rather than the extensive and dull ones the system might be offering.

He observed one of the players walking ahead of him as she activated her wings and took off. The other girl shook her head and then her own wings materialized and she crouched as though she was intending to jump.

"H-hey!"

The girl turned her head around on reflex and Kirito was relieved that his call hadn't gone unnoticed.

Four translucent grey wings moved a little, but the female player didn't attempt to fly away. Instead, she looked at Kirito in genuine confusion.

"How do you… ah, how do you do that?" he asked.

The girl looked from one side to the other as though looking for somebody else Kirito might be talking to, but there was nobody aside from them in the alley. The plaza a block or two behind her was filled with people, though.

"Are you talking to me?" she asked, her voice not quite matching her looks. It was high and more like a voice of a child while she looked to be at least several years older than Kirito. Granted, it was hard to make guesses with avatars, but one thing that stood out was the fact she was about a head taller. Her outfit also looked a whole lot more refined and the charcoal body-tight dress matched her short hair. She had a dagger strapped to the belt on her waist and a short-sleeved black jacket covering her shoulders.

Kirito looked up at her face. A pair of amber eyes was looking at him the way one would look into a stuffed bear walking into a café.

Scratching the back of his head, he said, "Yeah. Well, I was wondering, how did you do that? With the wings…"

"Oh… that."

She straightened and turned to face him, all traces of wonder and confusion momentarily erased.

"Are you new to ALO?"

"Well… something like that," Kirito admitted.

She smiled.

"No wonder it's strange to you then. Don't worry, it's not very hard. For starters, you should use flight controller. Just… I'm no good when explaining. I'll show you and you try to imitate."

She moved her left hand as though grabbing for something and an object akin to a joystick appeared in her hand. Her wings glowed brighter.

Kirito blinked, then did the same thing. A small controller appeared in his hand and a strange, itching, but not unpleasant sensation went through his back.

"So those are wings, huh."

"Yep. To fly, pull it and to land, push it away. To go faster you have to keep pressing the button. Turning left and right, well, that's pretty much logical, no?"

Kirito nodded as he inspected the controller, agreeing to her words absent-mindedly.

"Remember to land when your wings look like they're about to stop shining. You gotta let them rest as you don't want to end up falling from too high. It depletes your HP faster than even Salamander fire magic."

"Fire magic…?"

She didn't appear to hear that part as she continued to give him more reasons why falling from high places would be bad as though he was a true beginner, although he might as well be with how much information he had on this place. Then he realized something, interrupting her in half the sentence.

"You weren't about to do that."

"Eh?"

The girl blinked, taken aback at her lesson being interrupted.

"You were going to fly without the controller. So how does that work?" Kirito asked.

She blinked again, confusion evident on her face, then her lips parted as she realized what he was talking about. She smirked, eyes gleaming in amusement. "Pretty sharp, aren't you? Well, that's something called voluntary flight. It's reserved for the experts." She winked and turned away, stretching her arms. "I'm in a bit of a hurry now. Don't forget to add me as a friend. Name's Dana."

"Eh… ehh—"

"Come on, I don't have all day."

Kirito took a step backwards at the sharp look she sent him and quickly found the option to send a friend request. The player – Dana – grinned at the window that appeared before her as she accepted the invite.

"Ki-ri-to… hmmm… Okay." She kept scrolling for a few moments before suddenly exclaiming, "Two-hundred and thirty-nine! Yatta! Thanks! Gotta go!" She crouched, kicking off the ground hard enough to raise dust. Several seconds later, he couldn't make a difference between the glow of her wings and the starry sky.

A half-smile on his face, Kirito looked back in his hand and summoned the flight controller again.

The controls sounded pretty basic. He pulled the controller towards him and immediately he was airborne. He'd pulled too hard, he realized as he'd launched into the air in what felt like breakneck speed. He remembered the jumps he could pull of back in SAO, crossing very large distances in only a single one, but not even that could compare to a sensation of there being absolutely nothing under his feet.

He used the controller to fly in circles several times, to get more accustomed to the thrilling sensation, then he thought up of one thing he could do, but for that…

What did Dana say about landing again…?

Oh, right. She didn't mention anything.

It took him several minutes to fully adapt to the controls and get a hang on flying and the best thing was that once he did, he no longer wanted to land. Flying as high as he could, as fast as he could, he performed spins and turns and dives which he would never be able to do anywhere else. At that moment, he didn't have it in himself to care about the people down at the plaza who might be looking at him.

He felt free – of confinement, both social and mental – something he hadn't felt in a long time.

This is it! With these wings I'll be able to find you, Asuna!

With that in mind, Kirito flew higher and higher as though to test the limits of where they could take him.

November 8th 2024

The clamoring in the pub was awfully loud, cheerful and excited. People, or rather fairies, both players and NPCs, were constantly coming in and out, drinking and laughing as though they scarcely had anything to worry about.

As Asuna walked down narrow passage between the tables, she thought this was hardly a fitting place for her. She remembered what she'd been thinking when she had agreed to go for a drink with the one person who has been her only source of information ever since she had first appeared in that place, the previous day, but the longer she spent inside of that small, cozy pub, the more she felt as though she didn't belong.

"Want to sit there?" her companion, a fellow Undine player named Tramp, asked with a quick gesture towards one of the free table in the furthest corner.

"Anywhere is fine," Asuna replied. She would normally be picky about places depending on the shading of the light or the interior of the pub, or rather would not walk into anything less than a fancy cafe, but things had stopped being normal once she'd ended up in the death game of «Sword Art Online». She was free now, or at least technically so, but at the moment she did not have it in herself to go around picking seats. Her mind was too focused on the reason why she agreed to that and all she wanted now was more information.

Tramp shrugged in response, leading towards the table in a casual stroll. As they sat down, he took an order for both of them then leaned on his elbows with a silly grin.

"So…?"

Asuna's gaze wasn't lacking any emotion, but it was still detached enough to make even his smile wither a little.

She'd met Tramp last night when she accidentally crashed into him while she was trying to handle the flight controller on her own and had gotten a crash-course from him on how to do it without ending up crashing into people all the time and Asuna was grateful for that. She had continued asking him questions about ALO – the game otherwise known as ALfheim Online – and its systems, goals, rules and everything else she could have come up with at the time. By that point she had already been aware of her inability to log out and, in all honesty, she hadn't been too surprised.

Tramp had been rather helpful, giving her all the information she had asked for along with managing to lift her spirits a tiny bit with his happy-go-lucky, absolutely blaze attitude on many things, so when he'd asked her if she was in the mood for a drink tomorrow afternoon, she couldn't quite find a good enough reason to turn him down. Looking at him now, she realized she might have made a mistake.

He was smilingly contentedly, light brown hair disheveled and sticking out in all possible directions, a pair of blue eyes not once looking straight at her. He was slightly taller than Asuna and much broader in shoulders, but compared to some other people she'd had the chance to meet, he was hardly an imposing figure. Rather, he seemed more like a person that was entirely comfortable in his own skin whether it was the real world or the virtual one. Even now his fingers drummed against the table as though he was playing a piano while he waited for Asuna to say something. She complied.

"It's my treat," she informed him with dignity.

Tramp grinned as though he'd been waiting for that.

"Accept it, girl, you're a noob. You don't have enough money for that," he said lightly and his eyes twinkled in amusement as if he were enjoying making Asuna feel uncomfortable. Perhaps she was just too good at judging people for her own good, but she could see that he meant nothing more than to lightly tease her.

"I have more than you'd think," she replied as she put the menu down. "Which is why this should be my treat. I admit it, you've helped me a lot, so at least let me do that much."

"Hell no! I ain't gonna let myself get treated to a drink by a girl. Where's the courtesy in that?"

"Are you going to continue being this tiring or will I have to draw a weapon?"

"We're in the middle of Undine territory. You can't reduce my HP."

"It doesn't mean I can't knock you out if I really want to," Asuna pointed out.

"You're doing that by just looking at me."

"… I think I asked you to stop with the lame pick-up lines."

"Right, so you did. Ah, here are our drinks. Cheers?"

Asuna could only exhale as she lifted her cup. She'd come with every intention of asking him more questions, but only now she realized she had run out of questions that players could answer.

She'd learned all she could about the use of magic, the flight, the goal of ALO, the general outline of the characters and their roles along with many other things. Questions that bothered her, rather than the questions about the game itself, was why her SAO stats had been carried over, along with her and Kirito's Items, Equipment and even her friend list, although everyone listed there were clearly disconnected. She also wanted to know how come she ended up here after what had taken place on the seventy-fifth floor of Aincrad, but she couldn't very well expect Tramp to be able to answer any one of those questions. But the answers for which she would give absolutely anything concerned nothing else but a certain swordsman who'd been with her until her very last moments in SAO.

Kirito-kun…

"You okay?

Asuna lifted her head, realizing she'd drifted in thought. She waved her hand easily.

"I'm fine. Just thinking," she said.

"You're not drinking," he pointed out.

"I am," Asuna corrected, then lifted her cup and took a long gulp on the liquid inside.

Unlike what she'd been expecting, the liquid itself was rather sweet, reminding her of the Belgian hot chocolate she'd drank once, a long time ago. It couldn't compare to some of the things she had made back during SAO, but the high price was justified seeing how bland the tastes in Virtual Reality could be.

"Are you planning on logging out?" Tramp asked as he took a gulp of his own.

Asuna shook her head. "Not yet. I—I'm still looking for somebody."

"Right, you've mentioned that. You have them on your friend list?"

"… Yes. He doesn't appear to be logged in, though," Asuna murmured as she entered her friend list and scrolled through it, her finger gently resting when it reached Kirito's name. The name, like all others, was dull and grey, not showing anything that might be able to hint that he was trapped inside of this game with her.

She noticed a strange, thoughtful look on Tramp's face for a moment before it went back to his neutral grin. What he said next had her feeling pretty idiotic, but hopeful all the same.

"Did you try clicking on it or you're just looking at the list? Because that list won't show you whether somebody is logged in unless you specifically click on the name."

"E… Eh?!"

Tramp's hands hit hard against the table and Asuna instinctively lifted her cup so the drink wouldn't spill.

"Don't tell me you didn't know that!" he wailed.

"I-I can't help it! The last game I played had a very different system!" she said in her defense.

"Mother of god, I thought you were an ALO novice, not a complete and utter one!"

"I am not! I just—I don't play that much!"

Asuna cringed on the inside, realizing herself how far that was from the truth. No matter which way she looked at it, it was impossible for Tramp to have spent more time playing games compared to her in his entire life, not that he was going to know that.

"Okay, fine," he said with a slight nod. "At least you know now, if nothing else. So are you going to IM him?"

"Eh? What?"

"IM – Instant—"

"I know what that means," Asuna interrupted him. "What makes you think I would try doing that in the first place?"

Tramp shrugged, taking another gulp of the drink. "Aaah! Too good... Back to the subject, in your position, that's what I'd do. If I've got a friend from RL here and listed as friend, the first thing I'd do is send an IM. It's called common sense. Ever heard of it?"

"Now you're just being rude," Asuna mumbled as though bothered, but she couldn't help the hope springing in her chest. She was moments away from opening the window and doing exactly what Tramp suggested, but she was holding back. Whether it was fear or apprehension, or just the fact that she was not alone, Asuna couldn't make her heavy fingers lift in order to start typing. The Undine sitting across her rolled his eyes and it wasn't difficult for Asuna to guess that he might as well be reading her thoughts from the look on her face.

"I promise I won't look," he said sarcastically.

"That's not the problem," she grumbled.

He shrugged in response then opened his status window. Asuna blinked when a moment later a window popped up in front of her, indicating a friend invite. She looked at him and Tramp distinctively avoided meeting her gaze.

"You said you'd think about it," he offered as an explanation.

"I know," Asuna said quietly as she glanced back down at the translucent window. "Just so we're clear, I'm taken," she added as she accepted.

"I don't care," Tramp replied in a sing-song voice. Then his eyes widened. "Ow, crap. It's two already! I gotta go. Some friends are waiting for me and—"

"You've told me that before," Asuna interrupted him.

"… So I did. Anyway, I should be logging in later this evening so see you then."

Asuna gave no way to greeting as he stood up in a rush and headed towards the inn he'd rented to log out. He was already on his way and Asuna had different things to worry about. She tried paying for the drinks, a part of her hoping he'd forgotten in haste, but the pop-up window told her the drinks were already paid for. How, she didn't try think about.

Instead she opened her friend list and once again searched for Kirito's name. This time she touched it and a window that opened gave her a pretty basic info on his account. Much to fulfilling her hopes, there was a small, green dot resting right next to his name and Asuna couldn't help the feeling of giddiness building inside of her as she opened the IM window without thinking.

«I don't know how it happened, but it seems I ended up in some other kind of a VRMMO. Where are you, Kirito-kun?»

She'd quickly clicked on the send button and twirled her thumbs, hoping for something, anything at all that might be of help. Several minutes she sat down at the pub alone, unable to move as though she feared his message might not reach her if she did – all while players around her spent their time by laughing and drinking and generally enjoying their time inside of this strange world.

A response from Kirito arrived quickly, although for Asuna every second had felt like eternity.

«I'm not too sure about my location, but it's somewhere in the Leprechaun territory, I think. Tell me where are you, I'm coming right away!»

Leprechaun territory?

Asuna opened the basic map that existed in her inventory and looked carefully. Kirito's race was listed as Spriggan, so why would he be somewhere in the middle of…? No, that didn't matter. He was too far and neither of them would probably know which direction to take. She'd heard from Tramp that to get better maps one had to take part in quests and Asuna quite frankly didn't have the will to waste her time on that. A thought came to her, then and she started rapidly typing.

«I have a better idea. At this rate, we're too far and we don't know our way around. It would be for the best to meet at the World Tree, at Arun. Even the maps we have can lead us there. It's also neutral territory so the risk of conflicts is minimal.»

This time, an answer came much, much faster and it melted Asuna's heart to see it.

«I'll be there» was what the message said.

Asuna couldn't help but smile, all while she thought, So will I. I promise you that.

Author's Note: Forgive my lack of proofreading. I was in a hurry to release this chapter so any and all grammar and spelling mistakes will be corrected shortly.

On a brighter note, I'm glad I've stirred up the fandom a bit and thanks to everyone for supporting this WIP by putting it on alters and faves and by reviewing. You're awesome!