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Asuna was not really bored as she laid in the back of a truck; such journeys were a part of her existence after all, and so she paid the darkness no mind. Still, she would rather be on display for people to see her. She was a mannequin after all; being seen and admired for what she was dressed in was the purpose of her existence. Her thoughts then drifted off as there seemed that there wasn't much for her to think or worry about. Even as the vehicle she was being transported in hit some bumps every now and again the plastic wrap cocooning her protected her from jostling up and down too much.
Her destination was a decent-sized store within Ginza's high-end shopping district. It was somewhat unique in that it was set up in the style of a department store but at the same time it was still solely owned by the one that had transformed Yuuki Asuna into merely 'Asuna' the mannequin. She was jolted out her drifting on the seas of obliviousness when she heard the plastic wrap around her being removed, and then her head was removed from her body once again. Seeing that her body was being disassembled once again, she began to wonder if she would finally get to be put back on display. True to her hopes, she saw that she was being dressed in a red-and-white striped bikini. Since she was nothing more than a mannequin in both body and mind she did not mind when the employees ogled her breasts or her butt as they worked. Why would she mind when humans did such things to her? And then at last her body was reassembled and she was carried out somewhere.
'Hopefully I'll be on display now' she thought.
Sure enough, she was brought to a window display for the sports section of the store. Though it was nearing late fall there were still some people who went swimming at this time of year in the last few days of warmth, but in any case the prime season for swimming was essentially over. Hence there was a sign advertising 15% bikinis nearby her, conveniently placed a short distance away from her butt, making sure that attention would be drawn both to the sale and how good the bikini looked on her rear end. And while Asuna didn't care about her pose, the employees made some minor changes to it, turning her head to the side instead of having it being looking down and rearranging her hands so that one was over the other. Her hair was placed so that some of it wrapped around her left arm, while the rest pooled underneath her right. And displayed underneath her were the words "Bikini Sale: Have Some Fun in the Sun".
Once the crowds started passing by, Asuna marveled at how many people seemed to enjoy looking at the bikini she was wearing and commenting on her form, noting how lifelike she looked. There was one human that kept coming into her vision that seemed vaguely familiar. Could it be one of the handful of others besides Kirito that she had actually seen often enough to remember? Why couldn't she place the girl with short brown hair and matching eyes who kept seeming to visit and stare at her for minutes at a time?
The brown-haired girl that kept appearing to look at Asuna was Shinozaki Rika, the best friend of the former Yuuki Asuna, who no longer existed (or indeed, ever existed) in anyone's mind.
Rika had come to Ginza looking for something within the store, which had heard a lot of good things about recently. It was here that she noticed the mannequin that was on display in the sports department. It was one that had brown hair like herself, though of a lighter shade, and for some reason looked familiar to her. It was weird to Rika that she would have this weird sense of de va ju with mannequin.
After coming back multiple times and having others she knew come with her to get their opinion, Rika finally managed to figure out where she had seen this mannequin before; it was within Sword Art Online. It was a mannequin that her boyfriend managed to find and get place on display within a store. Rika frowned a bit, recalling that he was later given this same mannequin when he was leaving the Knight of Blood, and that he had seemed just a little too fond of it.
Unbeknownst to Rika, the fact that Kazuto, a.k.a. Kirito, was her boyfriend now was just one of the many changes that had occurred as a result of Yuuki Asuna being written out their histories. With no one holding her back from telling Kirito what she felt, she had confessed her love for him after their adventure with the ore and the dragon, in a way that Kirito couldn't help but notice her confession. At least, that was what she remembered now, even though she had once put her feelings aside after realizing that her best friend Asuna was already in love with Kirito. But in her mind, she, Lisbeth the Blacksmith, and Kirito the Black Swordsman, had been a happy couple in the game, and now they were one in reality too. And in the end, there was no way that a mere mannequin could compete with her for Kirito's affections.
"Come to think of it, the same mannequin model was later re-used for the Undine 'Berserk Healer' in ALO as well," Rika thought absently to herself.
She was just about to write the mannequin off entirely, when a thought struck her. Why was a non-player object that she knew from the virtual world before her in reality?
But what she didn't realize was that as she came to that discomforting thought, she was being watched.
She had been watched ever since the once responsible for Asuna's transformation noticed that her friend was paying an inordinate amount of attention to the new mannequin. If there was somehow the possibility that she might realize through the spell that it was really Asuna and try to take her mannequin away from him, he couldn't allow Rika to get away.
Going to where he had hidden Asuna's phone, he looked amongst the numbers she had stored on it and found Rika's name. While everyone may have had their memories of Yuuki Asuna erased, that did not erase it from anything else. However this problem was easily dealt with since she was considered to have never existed. Any references to her were seen as typos or pranks and no one would register Asuna's appearance as a human girl in any pictures. Just as Asuna's memories were swiftly altered when presented with evidence contradictory to the notion that she had always been a mannequin, such as when she forgot about that a metal rod had to be freshly drilled into her neck, people would immediately rationalize away any references to Asuna that they somehow became aware of and would actively erase any contradictory records they found.
But even though his memory-altering magic was targeted to be strongest on Asuna's friends, as their memories of her were also the strongest and thus most dangerous to him, it didn't seem to be affecting Rika quite to the extent that it should have. And that was a problem.
Dialing Rika's number, he left a message claiming to be from Asuna herself. This was the test that he was running. If Rika responded to the message then that meant she was definitely a risk to the plan as a whole. Somehow she was aware that the Asuna mannequin was more then just that even if she did not fully realize it herself yet. Allowing someone like that to remain around could prove to be very bad news for him.
And if she did respond, he honestly could look forward to making her a mannequin as well. Rika had a rather nice figure, particularly in the bust, even if it was a little less traditionally feminine than Asuna's. She'd make a fine mannequin for his store as well.
Shinozaki Rika had returned to the store after getting a strange message claiming to be from someone named Asuna. The name was one that she was sure that she had never heard of before but there was this nagging feeling that she just could not get over, so she just decided to see what this was about.
'This better not be some kind of prank' Rika thought as she looked down at her phone again.
Come to the store in Ginza
Asuna
Looking up at what she guessed was the store in question, though she wondered why that was the case though.
'Maybe it's because of that strange mannequin that this place has,' Rika thought as she entered the store.
Finding herself just wandering to the sports department, she noticed the brown-haired mannequin that she was used to seeing on display was not there anymore.
"Why do I keep coming here?" Rika whispered to herself out loud.
"Why indeed, as I have noticed that you seem to come here a lot look at the mannequin that was on display there," a person asked.
Narrowing her eyes at the person, she wondered who they were and why they just decided to talk to her all of sudden, even more so when the man started looking at her while stroking his chin.
"Do you want something from me?" Rika asked.
"How would you like to be the model for the next mannequin in my store?" he asked her.
"Huh? Look, I am busy looking for someone at the moment" she told him.
"Would it be because you got a message from someone that you should not know?" came his reply.
Then he went on to say that one she was looking for was in the back as they were working here and currently was on a break at the moment. When he noticed Rika had come in, he had come over to her to inform her where her friend was.
"So do you want to come with me? I can allow you to see them in the back since I own this place after all," he told her
Looking cautiously, she decided to go with it as she wanted the matter resolved so that she can move on, as it had been on her mind for long enough. Not once did she notice the small smirk that was on his face as she was lead into the back room.
Rika was then left in a room where she noticed no one else was, other than what seemed to be something underneath a cloth. She wondered what it was as exactly it seemed to be of a decent size, almost the same as herself really. She went over to it, removed the cloth, and saw...the nude brown-haired mannequin from the sports department.
However it seemed to have a different body then what Rika was used to seeing it in, a body that was standing up with right hand down at its side and the left hand bent so that the hand was almost touching its shoulder, yet there was gap, almost like something was going to be placed over its elbow for it to hold.
Rika backed up, bending her right arm so that it touched her hip as she leaning forward a bit with her chest. She also bent her left arm and closed her hand, save for her pointer finger, which was aimed upward, as she was going to say something but stopped mid way.
"Why am I doing this with a mannequin?" Rika said to herself out loud.
She just had this sudden urge to tease this nude mannequin that was before her for some strange reason. It was freaky and then she noticed something in the right hand of the mannequin. It was a phone that suddenly sprang to life and there on the screen of the phone itself was the very message she had gotten telling her to come here.
Rika's mouth just hung open and her eyes were lit with horror as utter shock and realization dawned upon on her. That was the phone of her best friend, something that she could believe that she had forgotten until just now. If her phone was here, then what if that was still Asuna that was holding it?
"Correct. It seem that you have managed to overcome my spell, so to speak" the store owner said.
Rika was about to lash out at him but then found that her body was not responding to her at all. She was unable to move an inch, frozen in place as she was.
"You are probably thinking that 'spells' such as that should be impossible. Magic, real and true magic, does not exist in reality after all. In sense as what I have done is not really magic, per se, but it so far beyond what anyone other then myself is capable of understand that it might as well be magic," he told her.
They ran a finger across Rika's cheek and noticed how it was still flesh and blood but was slowly losing that as it was being transformed into plastic. A sign that this was happening was how the freckles on her face were slowly fading away. After all, who ever heard of a mannequin with freckles after all? The complexion of her skin continued to change as surely as it was going from obviously real to obviously made of plastic.
By now, Rika's body had been fully converted from human to plastic save for her head. The process then converted her mouth, which would still exist after she had became a mannequin, unlike Asuna who no longer had one as there was nothing but solid plastic inside her head and behind that smile of hers; Rika was different since her mouth was open. Her tongue merged with the bottom of her mouth, and her teeth remained as well, though only the top row would be visible. Her throat was sealed off as there was no point for a mannequin to breathe or eating, and she no longer had any organs since she was just plastic through and through.
The man marveled when the transformation reached her eyes, which were still frozen in shock and utter horror at what she was looking at. Once they had become mere blank orbs, all contexts to her expression vanished and she no longer looked scared at all. In fact, Rika appeared to have rather pleasant expression that was playful, matching with her pose very well.
Then Rika felt something on her head being removed, and to her horror it was her hair, which was a no longer rooted to her head but now merely placed upon it, allowing the guy to hold it like it was some kind of wig. Otherwise, the hair looked unchanged, retaining the texture of human hair and its dark brown coloration. But Rika was further disturbed when he flipped it over, revealing that the scalp was now just a lining of plastic, and there was a tag attached to it. At first the tag looked blank, but then she saw something words appear on it.
It read: "Shinozaki brand mannequin model 'Rika'. Created for Lisbeth's Smithery"
Rika was raging mentally as that was all she was seemingly able to do at the moment. She wanted to strangle the guy that had done this to her, but then she was distracted by the familiar sound of someone laughing. It was strange as she wouldn't have been able to place this laugh before this happened but now it seemed all too familiar.
'As if you could strangle some human. And why would you want to, Rika'? the voice said.
Looking around as best as she could in her limited range of vision, the only person Rika could see was that guy who was REMOVING HER CLOTHES. But while she was cursing him as he cut through them (it was hard to remove them otherwise as her body was still just a single plastic unit) her expression remained unchanged, as her body was nothing more than an inanimate object now.
'Really, why are you so upset that some clothes are getting removed?' the voice continued. It was definitely a female voice, so it couldn't possibly be the guy. 'I have them removed all the time. It is what we exist for: to display the clothes that we are dressed in.'
'Where are you?' Rika asked in frustration. 'And how are we even able to speak like this if my mouth is not moving?'
The other's voice sounded a little sad now. 'I am over here, Rika. I'm the only other one in this room right now besides our owner. How can you not see me?'
'The only ones here are me, this perv… hey, stop staring at my breasts, and… wait, Asuna, is that really you?' She looked over to where the other mannequin still stood completely nude, recognition at last dawning upon her.
'Of course it's me, who else would it be, Rika? I'm your best friend after all. It took you so long to be delivered here, I was worried that something had happened to you. But get this: before you arrived there was this human that looked exactly like you that would keep coming to see me while I was on display. I had gotten a replica of my original body recently, and was displaying this lovely red and white striped bikini. It was a shame that she never bought it though. She came here as well, but left a short time ago, just before you arrived at last actually.'
`Wait, what are you talking about, Asuna? We are both humans that were turned into mannequins. That really was me coming to visit! Why are you acting like this? Was it something that this guy did to you? I swear, when my… your… wait… Kazuto is your boyfriend. So why would I claim him as mine?'
Asuna seemed confused. `Kazuto… who is that? I know a human named Kirito who was once my owner and gave me away along with some other mannequins a while ago to be displayed here. I was the first to arrive, and you are the second, Rika.'
`Asuna, quit joking around, we're both humans, even if we're like this now,' Rika told her, getting increasingly panicked as she did so.
`You're the one playing around,' Asuna replied. Continuing proudly, she said, `I am the Yuuki brand mannequin, model `Asuna', and you are the Shinozaki brand mannequin, model `Rika'. We were never human, and we have always been mannequins. It's sad that you seem to have forgotten this.'
Rika then blacked out for a second before she could make a comeback. Her thoughts had been so consumed by her unnerving conversation with Asuna that she was unaware that her head had just been separated from her body and placed on a nearby table after both she and Asuna were carried into another room.
`I am Shinozaki Rika and you are Yuuki Asuna,' she declared.
Sighing mentally, Asuna decided to humor her friend
'If they were really human then when did they first meet?' she asked
'We met when I was working from a Vendor's Carpet in SAO, and you and came by to get a sword from me' Rika replied. `I was called Lisbeth then.'
'No' Asuna replied. If she was a human she might have shook her head right then. `You've mixed up your own identity with that of your former owner. I was on display in a window and you were a mannequin for a shopkeeper named Hanna Heinemann, who like to call her business Lisbeth's. Thus as result there were people who called her that as well thinking it was her name. You were used to display her wares. We were within viewing distance of each other and that is how we met' Asuna said firmly.
Hana? That was the name of the NPC who had helped her staff her blacksmith's shop.
'That's wrong; I was the one manning the carpet as that was how I started my business' Rika insisted. 'I was Lisbeth, and Hana was the one who later worked for me.'
'How? You are a mannequin that was purchased by Hana so that she could use you to help display her wares and attract customers. That's why the outfit that you usually displayed was a mix between a blacksmith's and and a waitress's outfit; Hana wanted you to have a look similar to both' Asuna declared.
`Wait Asuna…. I think you might be right after all,' Rika said as her past began to rewrite itself. `I was bought by Hana / Lisbeth, and then I became her model.' She was so caught up in this revelation that she didn't notice that her legs were being sawed off from her body as Asuna's had.
Eventually, Rika went on to explain how she was still the model for Hana/Lisbeth after she had gotten her own shop and continued to be her biggest helper. And as she continued to narrate, Rika did not notice that other details changed in her mind as well to match Asuna's version of events. For example, rather than creating Lambet Light, the rapier that was Asuna's main weapon after the Wind Fleuret, Rika had held Lambent Light so that it could be displayed for others, and then the Knights of the Blood Oath had purchased it so that it could be shown with their own display mannequin, Asuna. And soon, all of Rika's achievements in Aincrad were credited to Hana/Lisbeth. Aincrad itself was no longer the world of SAO to her, but a real place in this world, where she had been first displayed as a mannequin.
Even her adventures with Kirito and everything she had gone through during those two years within SAO were now Hana's adventures. Rika was now just the mannequin that was always on display in the store, even when Kirito had arrived and broken Hana's best sword.
Asuna laughed as she recalled Rika telling her about that as Hana was pissed because she had spent a lot of time working on that sword. And she was glad that her friend was finally regaining her true memories. And while the two mannequins were going on about this, Rika's torso and hip were being separated into two different parts.
Then Rika told Asuna about how Hana went with Kirito to get the material to make his Dark Repulser and became his own personal blacksmith. And Rika told Asuna of how once everyone was able to leave Anicard again Hana had given her to Kirito, even as he went to recover Asuna from someone who had stolen her. Afterwards, she was on display with Asuna as a display piece for the Blacksmith class of the Leprechaun race, while Asuna represented the Berserk Healer for the Undines.
"So Rika do you recall who you are now?" Asuna asked, sounding quite happy as she did so.
'Of course! I am the Shinozaki brand mannequin, model 'Rika', created for Lisbeth's Smithery. I originally belonged to someone named Hana, a.k.a. Lisbeth, who knew your owner Kirito. Then after being owned by Kirito myself I was on display as a display piece for the Blacksmith class of the Leprechaun race. Now I am here, where I am getting my new body, which will be a replica of my original one, made. This is my existence and reality'
Shinozaki Rika was no more; only the mannequin "Rika" remained in her place.
'See how silly it was to claim that you or I were human?' Asuna told her
'Us!? Human? Why would I ever say something like that?' Rika asked.
Asuna mentally shrugged. `Um… I'm not sure. I must have gotten confused. Neither of us would ever say or think something as silly as that.' Already, her memory of the conversation she had just had with Rika was rewriting itself.
Rika then commented on how the body Asuna currently was different then the one Rika had last seen her in.
In response, Asuna boasted that the body she had now in had painstakingly created from the measurements of her alternate body, as their current owner wanted her to have a body with her standing pose again that was of just as high quality as the alternate body she had been using to model bikinis in the window.
Neither really noticed for long when Rika's head was picked up to have a metal peg inserted into her neck. They explained it away as it was not being inserted for the first time, but the original one was merely getting replaced with a newer one.
Rika then had her hair placed back on her head. However, it was now pink instead of brown. What had happened was that Rika's hair was treated so that when exposed to cold water it would change from brown to pink and vice versa. Rika did not really react to this as wearing wigs of different colors wasn't a big deal for a mannequin. Back when Hana first got her, she had been wearing a dark-brown wig she was wearing at the time, but later she got to wear a pink one; a pink wig was nothing new to her, let alone having one that the ability to switch between dark brown or pink.
Sometime later, still as just a head wearing her wig in its pink color state, Rika found herself wondering if she get to be out on display herself soon. Asuna was placed back out on display in the replica of her original body some time ago, leaving Rika alone with only her standing pose body in the backroom.
She looked on with vague interest as her owner took careful measurements of her own replica body; he seemed to be intent on building an alternate body for her as well. Though he had rather interesting method of doing it - he was very hands on, groping the breasts and the butt, while admiring the arms and torso as well. But this scarcely bothered her now.
Rika was jolted to attention when she finally felt herself being lifted and connected to a body. Since there was a reflective surface nearby, she was able to see how it looked compared to her original body. Her left leg was set a little ahead of her right, and her left arm was bent at the elbow so that it almost touched her ear, while the right kept close to her body down to her waist, where she held it out with her hand down. She was dressed in a bikini, which unlike Asuna's, left most of her breasts visible to the admiring eyes of humans. This dismayed her somewhat, as she worried that potential customers would just pay attention to her breasts instead of the merchandise she was wearing. But she couldn't get too angry about it; it wasn't her place to do so as a mannequin, and she would proudly display whatever she was given.