Second Chapter. A little bit behind the schedule I was trying to set for myself, but hopefully I'll be able to update relatively often. Reviews are welcomed and appreciated. If you have questions or suggestions I'll do my best to get back with you.
I do not own Sword Art Online
Ch. 2
Awakening
His eyes opened slowly and the light was blinding. Was he in heaven? Could he find Asuna here then? But slowly he became aware of the rest of his surroundings too. It smelled sterile in the air, the blinding light was coming from the fluorescent bulbs above him, and he could hear a constant beeping beside him. He tried to move, but it was if his body refused to acknowledge his commands. His head felt heavy. He could tell something was on it. He went to try and take it off, but as he struggled to lift his hand and it came into view, Kazuto was shocked. It looked sickly, almost taking on a gray tint. It was weak and feeble looking.
It was at that moment that he realized he wasn't dead. He was awake in the hospital. The heavy thing on his head was the NerveGear. He had somehow survived dying in the game, maybe he had been spared for beating it? Did that mean…
Adrenalin and energy coursed through him, and despite his bodies desperate pleas to relax, Kazuto forced himself into a seated position. He fumbled with the strap on his NerveGear until he felt it come undone. Pulling it off Kazuto felt a great deal of hair come tumbling out. He didn't even bother thinking about it though. He held the NerveGear in his hands for a moment, and briefly he thought about all the time and lives lost because of it, but he pushed those thoughts away and set the NerveGear down without another thought. He couldn't focus on anything other than her…he needed to find her, to make sure she was okay. He needed to find Asuna.
He tried to stand, to move his legs, but it was of little use. His entire body cried out in pain. He cursed himself, his body had deteriorated so much from being stuck in the hospital for over two years, but on top of that he had always been a weak and frail person because of the lifestyle he lived even before SAO. He was always weak, that's why he couldn't face his cousin/sister in the past, that's why he had quit Kendo, that's why he ran to hide himself in gaming, the reason he had abandoned Klein during the beginning of SAO, why he had let the Moonlit Black Cats die, and why he Asuna ended up having to sacrifice herself to help him beat the game. He refused to be weak anymore.
With an immense amount of pain, Kazuto swung his legs over the side of the bed. He reached out and grabbed the IV stand next to the bed and held on to it with every ounce of strength he had. He put his feet to the ground and forced himself to stand up.
"Aghh!" He cried out in pain as his legs instantly tried to give out on him. He held himself up with the IV stand though, and with another burst of will, Kazuto forced his legs to stand again. Already he could feel his body covered in sweat and his breath came in ragged gasps. The heart monitor he was still hooked up to was going crazy, but he ignored it. He didn't have the time to worry about himself now, he needed to find her, whatever it took and with that thought he began to push himself forward. He felt slight resistance as he got closer to the door as his monitors were still hooked to him, but after a few more steps his monitor patches fell off of him and the beeping turned in to a long wail as it no longer detected his heart beat.
Once he made it to the door he struggled to push it open, but when he finally did he was greeted by numerous nurses and doctors running around in a frenzy. He could hear them all yelling and shouting about patients all waking up, and Kazuto was able to figure out that they must be talking about the other SAO players. It filled him with hope. If he was alive, if the others were alive…then she had to be alive too. She had to be…he needed her to be.
He barely made it three steps out of his room when a nurse spotted him among the chaos. "Hey, someone help me, we got one up and out of bed!" She shouted as she ran over to him. Two more nurses were quick to follow, one male and the other another female.
They began to try and usher Kazuto back into his room, but he shook his head.
"C'mon kid, you're in no condition to be up." The male nurse said.
"We've already contacted the families, I'm sure yours will be here soon, just hang in there okay?" Another said.
"A-ana" He tried to speak, but his tongue and voice refused to work correctly.
The nurses basically picked him up and gently put him back in his room. "Your family will be here soon, okay?" The original nurse tried reassuring him again.
"Asna…" He tried again, desperate for them all to understand.
"What is he trying to say?" The nurse asked one of the other ones standing around them.
"Asu…na…Yu-Yukki?" He tried again.
"…Asuna?" One of the nurses repeated back to him.
Kazuto nodded his head. "Y-Yukki." He repeated. He saw all the nurses exchange looks, but he continued, "Al-alive?"
"You're okay, Mr. Kirigaya. You made it back, you're aliv-"
Kazuto shook his head fiercely instantly making his head pound in pain. "Asu-na…alive?" He tried again.
Again, the nurses exchanged looks before looking back down at him. "We don't know, and we can't talk about other patients…I'm sorry."
"Need to…need to see-" He began saying as he tried pushing himself back up.
"Hey, Mr. Kirigaya, please you need to stay in bed!" The nurses said as they tried to restrain him. Despite his frail body, Kazuto fought back against them. He knew he couldn't win, but he refused to stop trying. He had to see her.
"We need to get him under control." One of the nurses said before shouting out of the room, "We got one who's fighting, he's going to hurt himself unless we put him out!"
Realizing what the nurse meant Kazuto redoubled his efforts to fight back and get up, but his body couldn't stand up against the nurses holding him down. Before he knew it another individual rushed in holding a needle.
"This is just for your own good Mr. Kirigaya." One of the nurses said as the needle injected him with the liquid inside. It was only a few moments before all the fight left his body and his eyelids became too heavy to keep open.
He fought it with all his might, but the darkness overtook him quickly.
The next time Kazuto came to the back of his bed had been raised so he was in a reclined seated position. He immediately tried to get up, but discovered his hands were bound to the sides of the bed. He struggled for a moment but quickly realized it was hopeless, he wasn't going to get out himself.
"Sorry for that, Kirigaya. The nurses looking after you insisted it was for your own safety." Came a voice from beside Kazuto. He looked over to discover a dark haired man with glasses and a suit was seated next to the bed. In his lap was a tablet that had an acronym on the back of it, MIAC. Kazuto couldn't remember what the acronym stood for, but he quickly realized this man as a government official. Why was he here?
"I was informed that you were able to talk…at least a little bit? Hopefully your vocal cords have had some time to rest after your exertion from earlier. Maybe it'll be a bit easier for you to talk?" The man asked.
Kazuto started at him suspiciously. "Who…?" He gestured at the man with his head.
The man smiled. "Fantastic, we might actually get somewhere with this conversation." The man set the tablet down next to him. "My name is Seijirou Kikuoka. I'm with the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, the VR world division."
Kazuto nodded his head. He had heard of that ministry, but he didn't know there was a VR world division. "Didn't know…that was…that was a thing." Kazuto said. He did find it easier to talk now, but it still wasn't easy.
Seijirou Kikuoka laughed, "Yes, well its quite new actually. The whole SAO incident kind of spurred the entire thing off you see." Kazuto nodded again. That made sense. However, Kazuto was not ready to sit around and waste time with the man, he still needed to find out what happened to Asuna.
"Let…m-me out of these." Kazuto said while gesturing at his arms.
"I'm afraid I can't do that. Not yet at least. I need to speak with you and from what I understand you seem to want to run away as soon as your free-"
"I'm not…not running aw-away." Kazuto struggled to say. "I-I need to-"
"Look for Asuna Yuuki, no doubt." Kikuoka interrupted, catching Kazuto off guard and shocking him, "Funny that she should use her real name for her in game avatar, I understand that is not normal practice. But then again, from what her family told me she was never much of a gamer before. You spent a great deal of time with her in the past month, didn't you, Kirito? Is that the reason you're so hell bent on finding her now?"
"How-how do you-"
"Like I said, I'm part of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and I was heading up the entire SAO incident. You see, I had access to the player logs, that's the only way we were able to keep up with what was going on inside the game. I could tell where people were located, but that was about it. I took a special interest in the "front line" players as we began to refer to them as. You and miss Yuuki were a part of them. However, you two also started remaining in the same locations during the late nights and throughout the day, suggesting there may have been more companionship between you two than just fellow front liners."
"You…you we-were watching us?" Kazuto asked.
"Monitoring. Like I said, I could only review the logs which showed very little to us on our end."
"Why?"
"Because you two were among the top tier players, as far as level went. You stuck out from the beginning, playing solo for the most part. But then you were with her for a great deal of time. Logically we were drawn to this."
"But…why are you here now?"
"Well, I was hoping you could enlighten me about what happened inside the game, Kirito."
Kazuto shook his head. "There are over 6,000 other players you could be questioning right now-"
"And rest assured, my department is getting a debrief from them. However, I had you pegged as one of the best players in the game, and you were there in the end. You stayed logged on even after the others had been let go. You probably know more than anyone else in the game, and that is why I came to see you in person." Kikuoka stated.
"I don't want to talk about the game, I want to-"
"Information regarding anything that happened during SAO is kept completely confidential. No one knows anything about the players. Your own family doesn't even know your avatar's name, nor that you were a front line player."
Kazuto narrowed his eyes at Kikuoka. "What is that supposed to mean to me?"
"I have information that you might find of use, Kirito. In turn, you have information that I could use. You might have miss Yuuki's name, but you don't know where she lived, you don't know her family, or what hospital she might be in." Kikuoka gave Kazuto a pointed look. "In essence, Kirito, you have no way of finding anything out about miss Yuuki."
Kazuto felt rage boil inside of him, but he knew Kikuoka was right. His best and fastest option for finding Asuna was to work with Kikuoka. "I tell you what you want to know, and then you're going to tell me everything you can about Asuna."
"You have my word, Kirito-"
"Stop calling me that." Kazuto said.
Kikuoka tilted his head in confusion. "I simply figured after being in the game for so long, maybe that name would be easier for you."
"That's a name only my friends from SAO call me. The people I fought beside. You shouldn't use it like you know me." Kazuto said, tired of the way Kikuoka was acting with him.
Kikuoka just laughed. "Very well, Kirigaya, I'll stop."
"Now…what do you want to know?"
Kikuoka leaned forward and the light caught his glasses, making them bright and hiding his eyes from Kirito, "I want you to tell me everything…from the beginning."
Several hours later, Kazuto had told Kikuoka almost everything he could about SAO. He left out a great deal of parts in regards to things like Yui, but Kikuoka asked about several incidents he would have rather kept to himself, including the Moonlit Black Cats and the incident where Kazuto and the other front liners had attacked Laughing Coffin. He had just finished telling him about the battle with Heathcliff and informed him who Heathcliff really was, but he left out the conversation he and Asuna had with Kayaba after the duel. Kikuoka seemed to not have any idea about that encounter, and Kazuto would just assume keep it that way.
"So Kayaba was indeed masquerading around as the player Heathcliff, huh? I had begun to expect it, he was the only avatar that I could not match with any individual we were monitoring. Unfortunately we had no way to confirm it and even if we did there was no way to alert you and the other players about him."
"Yeah…"
"And so that's it then? Nothing else?" Kikuoka asked.
Kazuto stared back at him. "We beat the game, he let us go."
"Yes…but technically you died…so why were you still able to make it back, I wonder?" Kikuoka asked himself. "He made an exception for you."
Kazuto felt a sudden panic rise in his chest. "He made an exception for us! That's what you meant, isn't it?!"
Kikuoka gave Kazuto an empty smile. "I suppose I should fulfill my end of the deal now, yes?" He asked, not answering Kazuto's desperate plea. "Asuna Yuuki is still alive. However, unlike you, she hasn't woken up."
Kazuto felt like his world had just collapsed on him. She wasn't awake…she hadn't made it back yet? "How long does it take for everyone to wake up?" Kazuto asked, his voice pleading.
"Aside from you, everyone woke up at the exact same time. However, 300 players, including Asuna have not woken up yet, but they are very much still alive."
"How long does it take before the NerveGear-"
"In all the past deaths, the NerveGear fired off the microwaves within ten seconds after in game death as far as we could tell from the player logs. I don't think that they're in danger of dying just yet."
"What do you mean just yet?"
"Well, we're looking into what the possible implications could be, however we have no real lead as of yet. Rest assured we are working around the clock to-"
"You have to get them out!" Kazuto shouted.
"We're doing everything that we can from our side, but-"
"Please, she has to be okay!"
"We are doing everything that we can Kirigaya." Kikuoka stated firmly, silencing Kazuto. "Now, I will look into the details regarding Ms. Yuuki, and see if her family would be okay with letting you visit her. In the meantime, I think you should enjoy your victory. Your family is waiting for you, and I think we have kept them waiting long enough." Kikuoka stood up and grabbed his tablet. As he reached the door he turned around and said, "I'll send your family in as soon as I leave. I'm sorry about the situation with Ms. Yuuki. I'll try and keep you updated as much as possible."
Kazuto didn't answer at first. He just stared blankly in front of him. Finally he said, "I failed her."
Kikuoka looked at him curiously. "Failed her?"
"I was supposed to protect her. She was supposed to make it back…or we were supposed to go together. I-I failed her again. I failed her again, and again, and again!"
"You saved thousands of lives as Kirito and you made it back. We'll find a way to get Ms. Yuuki and the others back too. Just be patient." With that Kikuoka left.
Kazuto stared at the ceiling. He had failed her again. Kikuoka had just left calling him a hero, but he wasn't. Kirito the black swordsman was a failure. He failed his first friend in SAO on day one, he failed his guild, he failed Yui, and he failed Asuna. He was no hero. He was weak and powerless. He couldn't protect anyone he cared for.
"Kazuto!" He heard a familiar voice shout, breaking him from his thoughts. It was his sister (cousin) Suguha. Behind her were his adoptive parents, his aunt and uncle. They all ran into the room and engulfed him in a massive hug.
There was a mix of murmurs of how much they missed him, and how he had missed them, how worried they were, and how glad they were to have him back.
Their eyes were red with tears, and the looks on their faces were absolutely filled with relief. Although he had a smile on his face on the outside, he felt something snap within. Right now, while he was reuniting with his family, his Asuna was somewhere far away. Her family wasn't gathered around with relief, they were still without their daughter. Because he failed to bring her back.
At that moment, he swore to himself, he would never fail to protect his loved ones again.
