Happy New Years!

Wow! I was not expecting this much support on the first chapter of this story! Seriously, thank you so much, I promise to not let you down!

Hope you enjoy!

Monument of Memories

The sun had completely set by the time that Yuuki finally found the SAO Survivor School, with the endless horizon of stars to take it's place.

Turned out that only knowing the route between her old home and the school itself did little in terms of helping her find her way to either from the park. Thankfully after acquiring directions from a helpful, if slightly dumbfounded, passersby Yuuki was finally able to make her way to the school.

Of course when she finally did, a new problem presented itself in the form of what appeared to be a nearly abandoned building, with only a few janitors milling about the courtyard. The school day had no doubt ended hours ago by now.

Yuuki sighed as her mouth twisted into a frown. Where on earth was she supposed to find her friends now? They were probably all at home by now.

Sure, she could probably find her way to her old home and spend the night in the backyard or in the entranceway, but there was not any guarantee that the building would even still be standing. Her aunt had been pretty determined to turn it into a convenience store after all.

Just when she was about to give in and make her way to the location of her old family home, Yuuki noticed something, or rather someone, that put a massive smile on her face.

Just at the entrance of the school, fiddling with the lock on the main doors, was none other than the teacher who had let Yuuki 'sit in' on his class. Surely he would know the address, or at least the general locations, of her friends.

Suddenly the teacher suddenly nodded to himself and removed the keys from the door, stuffing them into his pocket before turning away from the school, and away from Yuuki. This immediately caused the young swordswoman to panic as she watched the only opportunity to find her friends before morning literally begin to walk away from her.

"Excuse me! Sir! Hey, wait up!" Yuuki cried as the ran towards the elderly gentleman, halting his progression away from the building, turning to face the purple haired girl sprinting towards him at full speed.

"Hmm? Oh hello miss, is something wrong?" The teacher asked, his voice calm but kind. Even if Yuuki had not already known the man, she would have immediately assumed correctly how kind this man truly was.

"Oh everything's fine!" Yuuki laughed, clearly nervous as she finally came to a stop only a few feet from the teacher, before plastering a small smile on her face, hoping the expression would be enough to convince the teacher that she meant no harm. "I was just wondering... Could you tell me where I could find Asuna Yuuki or any of her friends? Like an address or something?"

"Oh well I'm not permitted to tell you their addresses." The teacher replied, to which Yuuki gave a sad frown in response. After a moment however, the teacher gave her a warm smile of his own, placing his hand atop Yuuki's head. "But I am allowed to tell you that they're all spending a few hours at the local graveyard tonight."

"Graveyard?!" Yuuki exclaimed, panic racing through her system. Had one of her friends died while she was gone?

"Yes... A very good friend of theirs was laid to rest there after she lost her battle with AIDS. They all head there to spend a few hours at her grave once a month, just to spend time with her." The teacher explained, a sad smile appearing on his face as he spoke. "It was tricky letting the grave keeper allow them in after hours, but apparently they were able to convince him somehow."

Yuuki resisted the urge to let out a sigh of relief upon hearing this. The teacher had been referring to her own grave, not one of another friend. Quite a strange thing to be relieved about, that was for sure.

"How long have they been doing that?..." Yuuki asked cautiously, running her hand through her hair. Did she even want to know the answer to this? It was her in the ground after all. Or at least her old body.

"Around... 4 months now if I recall correctly." The teacher muttered, placing his chin in his hand as he closed his eyes, evidently deep in thought. "They go every friday on the fourth week of the month without fail."

Four months. She had been gone for four months. That was a metaphorical punch to the gut. There was no doubt now that her old family home would be gone or sold by now.

Deciding to hide the emotion from such a revelation from her features, Yuuki plastered on a brave smile before directing her gaze back to the teacher once more. "How would I get to the graveyard from here? Is it within walking distance or should I get a train?"

"Oh no need for that, it's quite easy to get there from here by foot, just take that path over there." The teacher explained as he pointed to a small wooded path a small distance from the school entrance. "Go straight for about a mile and then turn right, then an immediate left. You should see the graveyard from there."

"Okay! Thank you sir!" Yuuki exclaimed, giving the teacher a small bow of respect before bolting off down the path, disappearing from sight in a matter of seconds, leaving the teacher behind.

"Hmm... I feel like I should recognize her..." The teacher muttered to himself as he placed his hand in his chin before he decided to shrug the incident off, before turning away from the school once more, beginning his journey home. "Probably just my imagination."

Yuuki had not been sure what she was going to find when she did arrive at her gravesite.

Sure, it was pretty safe to say that a gravestone and a lot of dirt was going to be involved, but she was more interested in the possibility of the people that she could possibly find near it.

What had she been expecting? Possibly a few of her friends gathered, sharing stories or drinks, or maybe a few roses left behind at her grave. Maybe even nothing at all.

What she certainly had not been expecting was to find a man lazily lounging against her tombstone, loudly snoring as he slept away like a rock, obviously completely alien from the place in which he rested.

What made the situation all the more awkward was not that the man was some homeless vagrant or drugged up junkie resting against her gravestone as a means of acquiring a few precious moments of respite from the world.

No. It was quite far from that.

The person resting on her tombstone, a small line of drool dripping from the corner of his mouth was none other than Klein.

Yuuki's first instinct of course was to run over to give her friend a giant hug in order to awaken him, possibly followed up by a teensie-weensie little punch in the gut for sleeping on her grave. However the more devious side of her personality won out after a few moments of internal debate, causing a smirk to appear on her face.

She knew exactly how to wake Klein up.

Wasting no time, the young swordswoman snuck over to the large tree that hung over her gravestone, scampering up the trunk with the agility of a squirrel, before propping herself against one of the more stable looking branches.

When this was done Yuuki brought her hands up against her mouth in such a way her voice would be projected around the area, before finally beginning to speak, watching Klein the entire time. "Kleiiiin... Kleiiiin... Awaken..."

He was up in a flash, his head darting from side to side as he frantically scanned the area around him for the source of the voice, panic clearly gleaming in his eyes when he could not locate a soul.

"Wh... What?!... Who said that?!" He stuttered out, drawing a long breath as he continued to scan the area, hoping that it was just one of his friends playing a prank on him.

"It is I, Yuuki... The uh..." Yuuki furrowed her brow in thought. What could she call herself? Absolute Sword? Zekken? The patron saint of awesome? So many choices, so little time! "Hold on lemmie think of something..."

"...Wait what?" Klein muttered as his panicked eyes began to sparkle with a new emotion, the sparkle of confusion. Yuuki silently cursed. She was losing him!

"SILENCE!"

"Yessir!" The terror that had vanished from his eyes only moments before shot back into them once more as Klein cried, falling to his knees, bowing before Yuuki's gravestone, his entire body shaking like a leaf. "I mean ma'am! I mean-..."

"Klein!..." Yuuki spat out, causing Klein to freeze, thinking he had angered her spirit further. Thankfully this seemed not to be the case, as her next words possessed no obvious malevolence within them. "You will follow my every command... To the letter..."

"Without question your majesty!" Klein groveled, his forehead nearly touching the dirt upon which he had been resting only a moments beforehand. Yuuki smiled at his actions.

God, this was way too much fun.

"Good... Good..." She muttered, almost envisioning herself twirling some sort of evil mustache. It was now time to deliver the killing blow on her unfortunate victim. "Now, stand under the tree with a thousand branches..."

"The tree with a thousand branches?" Klein asked as he pulled himself to his feet, never ripping his gaze away from the gravestone that lay before him, though he was clearly confused again. "Is that in ALO or something?"

"Uh... No. It's the tree next to you." Yuuki corrected, watching as Klein glanced around for a moment before his eyes landed upon the trunk of the tree where she had taken up her vantage point upon.

"Oh." Klein muttered before making his way over to the tree, standing under the tree's many branches, glancing around, as if still searching for the source of the mysterious voice which guided him. "Right here?"

"Eh... A little to the left." Yuuki replied, waving her hand in the direction she wanted the man to go, despite his inability to see her.

"Right-..."

He was standing under the branch where she was perched. There was no escape for him now. He had walked right under her, and now it was time to make her presence known in the most creative yet sophisticated way she could think of...

"BANZAI!"

"AAAAHH! IT'S GOT ME! I DON'T WANNA DIE!" Klein screamed as Yuuki landed on him, locking her arms around his neck as she swung about on his back, only jumping off when Klein stumbled face first into the ground with a grunt.

Yuuki started laughing the moment she landed in front of the felled man, her hands on her hips as she chuckled at the priceless look on his face; one of complete and utter disbelief. If she had a camera at that very moment she would have taken a picture and made a thousand copies. She wouldn't do anything with them of course. Except maybe send a couple to Asuna and the Sleeping Knights.

"Wait... Yu-... Yuuki?..." Klein stuttered as he stared up at the face of the girl who he and his friends had gotten to know so well over the last few months of her life, going so far as to attend her funeral. Except she was here, stand in front of him as if she had not a care of the world.

"Hey! What up?" She asked, her usual happy grin appearing on her face as she offered her hand to her friend, who still had yet to move from the ground.

"Gh... Gh... GHOST!" He suddenly screamed, scrambling away on all fours like a crab, nearly smacking his head off the very tombstone he had been sleeping on only moments before.

"Wait what? Hey Klein! Wait up!" Yuuki called, before rolling her eyes and chasing down the bandana wearing man. She caught up to him with little effort, capturing him by his belt, pulling him back as he desperately attempted to crawl away. "I'm not dead you dummy!"

Klein stopped his crazed struggling almost immediately upon hearing this, looking up at Yuuki with wide eyes, blinking a few times just to make absolutely sure he was not imagining things. "Eh? You aren't dead?"

"Nope, still standing." Yuuki chirped, before rolls her eyes adding 'somehow' to herself, quietly enough that Klein completely missed the added comment, though to be fair he still looked quite stunned.

"So I'm not going to be condemned to an early damnation, forced to serve you as a mindless undead monster for all eternity?" Klein asked, earning a gaze of bewilderment from Yuuki.

"...What?"

"Eh... Nothing. So wait... How exactly are you here? We all saw your body being..." Klein trailed off, pointing to grave as a means of conveying the rest of his intended message. "You know."

"Hard to explain." Yuuki laughed as she rubbed the back of her head, running her fingers through her long purple hair. Having such long hair still fascinated her. They never let it grow past her shoulders at the hospital. "Let's just say it turns out I'm here to stay!"

"Oh, well I mean... That's awesome!" Klein exclaimed happily as the remainder of the doubt that had been present in his voice vanished as he let a massive cheesy grin appear on his face. "Have you told Asuna? Does she know your alive?"

"Nope.. Thought more of you would be here." Yuuki reasoned, giving a small shrug. She had hoped Asuna would be present when she got to the graveyard, but Yuuki could hardly blame her, it was late after all. Plus it was not like she was required to visit.

"Oh uh... We were all here actually but they must've left a few hours ago." Klein said as he took in his surroundings once more before pulling his phone from his pocket, nearly gasping when he noticed the time. It was nearly ten at night. He had promised to meet everyone in an hour on ALO. "I kinda fell asleep."

"Yeah I just happened to notice that. What the heck dude?" Yuuki asked, attempting to sound serious, though she could not keep the small grin off of her face. Klein had always been an oddball. Something she could admire.

"I can't help it, your grave is comfortable!" Klein spurted out with the usual amount of grace typical of the bandana wearing gamer, only for his breath to catch in his throat when he realized exactly what he had just said. Yuuki also stopped cold, one of her eyebrows raised.

"Uhh..."

"Yeah, I didn't really think about that comment..." Klein muttered as he stuffed his hands in his pockets, giving Yuuki a nervous laugh as she stared blankly at him, as if gazing into his very soul. "Kind of a talent of mine."

"It's cool. That gravestone is just a monument of memories is all." Yuuki said after a few moments of silence, letting out a laugh when Klein's shoulders slumped in relief, happy that he had not just angered Yuuki with his careless remark. "So what's up with you?"

"You know, the usual, work by day, ALO it up by night." Klein said as his hands finally left his pockets, beginning to roll his shoulder. "I don't exactly have the most interesting life in the world, but hey, I like it."

"That's pretty cool." Yuuki said, beginning to stare once more as her mouth twisted into a friendly, some would even say disarming, smile. "So no one to tell you what to do huh?"

"Nope!" Klein replied with an exaggerated thumbs up, giving the young swordswoman a grin of his own. "Bachelor lifestyle has its upsides my friend."

Yuuki only gave a curt nod to his remark, continuing to stare at Klein just long enough for him to grow slightly uncomfortable, as evidenced by him taking the smallest of steps backwards.

"Um... You alright there?" Klein asked, the smile disappearing from his face, one of his eyebrows raised as he gave Yuuki a stare of his own, though his was not even nearly as full of determination.

"You know, friends let friends stay over at their place when they don't have anywhere else to go." Yuuki finally said with a wide smile, causing Klein's eyes to widen as he finally realized Yuuki's plan.

"Well I mean..." Klein muttered after nearly a full minute of silence. A full minute taken up by pondering how exactly he had not seen this coming. Why wouldn't she need a place to stay? The hospital was kind if out of the question. "I'm just not sure it's a very good idea-..."

"C'mon Klein! Just help me out for a few days!" Yuuki cried as she slammed her palms together as if praying, holding them in front of her face, nearly accidentally smacking Klein in the process. "I promise I'll be as quiet as a mouse!"

"It's not that I don't want to help you Yuuk, but how exactly do I explain bringing an underage girl to my apartment in the middle of the night?" He asked as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

It was true that his apartment came with a guest bedroom, so the issue of where Yuuki would sleep could easily sort itself out, plus his job was good enough he could afford some extra food. The bigger issue was explaining to his landlord, friends, and neighbors why exactly he suddenly had a teenage girl staying over at his place.

"Oh come on. You'll think of something!" Yuuki whined loudly before a mischievous smile appeared on her face as she elbowed Klein lightly in the side, causing him to glance down at the swordswoman in curiosity. "You are my big cousin after all."

"Huh? Your big cou-... Ohh, I get'cha!" Klein exclaimed with a wide grin, before crossing his arms, closing his eyes in thought.

After what felt like an eternity to Yuuki, in truth only a few seconds, Klein finally opened his eyes and smiled.

"Hmm, yeah I guess that would it would be alright for you to stay a few days then."

"Awesome! You won't regret it! You won't even know I'm there!"

And that ends chapter 2.

Alright, thanks for reading! Happy New Year!