I do not own Sword Art Online or any of the recognizable characters. No profit is being made from this.


And the Walls Come Tumbling Down

My hands were skeletal, my muscles atrophied, and my hair was comfortably long but extremely sticky. I tried standing up, and almost fell down on the floor. Heavily breathing I sat on the edge of my bed.

"Please wait!" someone called out in the hall, "You can't stand up! Please, we need to check up on you, you're extremely weakened!"

Whoever was out there being chased by a nurse had more energy and drive than me. I finally stood up, made my way over to the sink and looked into the mirror. My secret hope that my SAO-appearance had made it over into reality had been shattered right after waking up, but I wanted to see my face. It was worse than I remembered. Two years of neglect and aging.

After being someone else for so long my true self repulsed me even more than before. It was also very strange how small things looked now.

I'm quite tall, almost two meters. The occasions when I met someone who didn't have to look up to see my eyes can be counted with the fingers of one hand. I was thin before, but now I was looking like a specter, unhealthily pale and with a grim expression.

"Please, lie down in your bed," a female voice told me from behind, "Your family will be informed, but you can't be up yet. Please cooperate."

"Fine," I said, trying to use my full voice for the first time since the beginning of all of this, "please don't worry about me."

I looked at the nurse and smiled a bit, and probably because of the stress she was under she didn't even look scared. Or maybe she had seen more than her share of scary looking people and simply couldn't be rattled by stick-thin and sickly-pale half-giants.

While I lay in bed I opened and closed my hands, to get some feeling for my body back, but it got boring pretty quick.

Nono. As soon as I didn't watch my thoughts her name and face popped up. The tears followed. She was out of reach now, no matter if she lived or died.

The reunion with my family distracted me later. After a short time for rehabilitation the SAO-survivors who were still in school got sent into a special facility, the SAO Survivor School. I saw Nono again and learned her true name, Kitamura Aiko, but of course nobody recognized me. It's hard to draw a connection between petite Brienne and lanky me.

The surviving guild-members sent me messages through the government, but I didn't respond. Nono – Aiko – sent nothing. Not until two months later, when two simple sentences reached me.

You know where I am. Please talk to me.

I laughed bitterly, but kept the message. It was machine written, yet I pinned it at my wall as if it was calligraphy.

When I walked the halls of my new school stares and whispers followed me. This was normal, but I hadn't had to endure it for a few years, and my skin had grown thin. One time two wannabe heroes even cornered me and accused me of being part of Laughing Coffin. I gave them my blank stare. It was the most effective defense mechanism I had come up with.

"You think," I began without inflection, "that I belonged to a guild of psychopaths who killed dozens, if not hundreds, of people without remorse, and you want to annoy me? A person that by your own reckoning doesn't hesitate to take a life and uses whatever means necessary? That regards killing as an art form and not as a travesty against life? Is that what you are telling me?"

There was no threat, no anger, no fear. I had perfected the art of sounding like a void. It usually got better results than shouting or threatening, especially in combination with the Stare. They caved and retreated with some posturing, but somehow it became common knowledge that I had been a member of Laughing Coffin. I was used to being an outsider. But Aiko sized me up with an unyielding stare a few times that made my skin crawl.

It was as if she was trying to look into my soul, but I was reasonably sure my soul was well hidden, and I just gave her the blank wall of my unattractive face. No aggression, no backing down.

Some time later I suddenly got another message, this time from Takuroni, the ax-fighter and last surving founder of the Four-Leaf Clover besides me and Aiko.

No matter why you are avoiding us, you owe at least Nono an explanation. I don't know what happened between you guys before the last boss-fight, but she was really looking forward to seeing you again. It's been almost half a year now. Get a grip and come to the Dicey Café on the sixth of august. We'll have a reunion of the Four-Leaf Clover and would be really really happy if you would show up. But even if you don't – please talk to Nono. She has been crying.

Sincerely yours

Takuroni a.k.a Shinohara Hotaru

I had heard about the bar that was run by Agil, a well-known merchant from SAO, that had become something of an unofficial meeting hub for SAO players.

Get a grip.

The date was three days from now, ample time to stop panicking and come up with a reasonable plan.

She has been crying.

They would all be there. Seven people who knew me and who would understand that I had betrayed them all. Lied to them. Wasn't really one of them.

She has been crying because of you.

There was really nothing good that would come out of it. All I could do was hurt me and them. And then I would have to see some of them every day and live with the accusations in their eyes.

You made Nono CRY!

Nono would hate me for sure. It was a very bad idea.

Three days later I was sitting at the bar of the Dicey Café. The Four-Leaf Clover had reserved a table and I was glancing at them from time to time. There was a certain atmosphere that was surrounding most of the patrons. Yes, this was a meeting place for SAO players.

I downed my soda and got up. I had been here and I had seen them all. Alive, healthy. Looking like they were supposed to.

Happy.

Aiko was among them and smiling sadly at something that Takuroni said to her. When I saw her here, among our friends, I suddenly noticed how different she was at school. Less sure of herself, less confident.

I almost talked to her. Almost.

Instead I paid Agil who looked as if he tried to remember me – unlikely, we had only talked three or four times during SAO – and left. When I was outside I stopped. Turned around to the door, and back again. Angry I hit a lantern and regretted it deeply, because I had used the same hand to hit a mirror that same day, with similar results.

Some people looked at me from the corners of their eyes, but most ignored me like I wasn't even there. I breathed in, breathed out, and started to walk down the street, when suddenly I heard a voice behind me: "Brienne?"

She had called me that a million times. Laughing, crying, screaming. But back than it had been the truth. Brienne died with Aincrad. Now there was only me. I took longer steps and went into the next alley.

"Wait!" her voice called behind me.

It's useless to run. She has seen you.

I walked faster.

She knows!

"Wait!" she called again, and now she really did sound as if she was about to cry. I felt her gripping my jacket, but unlike in SAO there was no way for her to stop me by force.

"What do you want?" I asked without turning around to her. My voice was grating over my vocal cords and sounded even deeper than normal. I hated my voice as much as I hated my appearance, which was the reason Brienne almost never spoke and never ever lost her voiceless whisper, not even when fighting with Nono.

"You are Brienne, right?" her voice was small, hopeful, afraid of being disappointed.

I kept quiet, my hands curled into fists. How?

"Why do you keep running away?"

"Brienne was a coward, don't you remember?" I asked, not quite admitting to being Brienne.

"And does that make her unreal? Do you know how many people never got enough courage together to leave Starting City? Do you know that she kept going into the field solo?"

And I was always so careful about no one finding out.

"She was stupid. And why do you keep bothering me?" It was difficult to keep my voice from shaking. She was still grabbing my jacket, and I was still looking straight ahead.

"I asked everyone if they had ever seen you. And I couldn't find a single soul that remembered seeing you. You stick out a bit, you know?"

"Haven't you heard? I was a member of Laughing Coffin," I said, barely holding back the bitterness, "Why would I be seen?"

"You forget that I was part of the... raid...," her voice faltered. Good job, me. Make her remember how she killed some murderers. We had never really talked about it, but I wasn't an idiot. I knew that the front-liners killed a lot of Laughing Coffin's members. I also knew that the death toll among the front-liners was so high because they hesitated. And that Nono came back because she didn't.

What I hadn't thought about was if that was making her question her own humanity.

"I would have seen you," she said with calm certainty.

"Leave," I rasped. I couldn't let her see me breaking down.

Finally her steps echoed in the alley and then there was only silence and the raging of my thoughts against myself. I crouched down, put my head in my hands and fought against the hickups that tried to break out. I lost. It took me five minutes to fight the tears back where they belonged.

Then I got up and turned around. I had no idea where the alley would lead and there was no point in getting lost anymore. The damage was done.

I almost ran over Aiko who was leaning against the wall just around the corner.

"Why would you do this to yourself?" she asked me, pulling out a handkerchief. I took it and cleaned my face.

"Do you really have to ask?" I whispered, unintentionally falling back to Brienne's soft voice.

"Maybe not. But I think you should know something." She took my face that was still hanging down with both hands and turned it so I had to look her in the eyes.

"I. Don't. Care."

With that she left and went back inside the Dicey Café. I wiped the last tears from my face and left, too. To go home. I don't care, she said. Didn't care about what? My reasons? My lies?

Me?

I almost didn't go to school the next day. But now that I was back I felt like I owed it to my family to see it through. I had also thought about starting an apprenticeship to become a confectioner. Maybe, just maybe, that would work out. But to do it I needed to finish school.

Aiko didn't look at me much the next day, and I knew I had blown it for real. Of course it was over the moment Aincrad was over, but now there weren't even empty dreams. I was finally back where I began two and a half years ago.

And it sucked.

When school was over Aiko suddenly walked up besides me, put a small package into my bag, and left without another word.

It was a game. Alfheim Online. And a small letter.

If you would still call me friend, meet me under the large tree in the capital of the Undine. I'll be online the whole evening.

She had stunned me again. I didn't want to talk with her in reality, so she gave me a VRMMO. I had looked into the development of the full-dive technology since I had come back. And I knew there was supposed to be "no risc at all" for the new system. Yeah, right. But, well... it was now or never. I went into the next store and bought an AmuSphere. No way would I ever put on a device again that could literally cook my brain. Nobody was that stupid.

Back home I needed twenty minutes to gather the courage to utter two simple words. When I was online and it was too late anyway, I spent almost an hour on the creation of a character that might or might not be used ever again. It was like SAO: If I could feel beautiful, why wouldn't I? To my utmost surprise "Brienne" was even still a valid name.

I was teleported to the Undine Capital, and was immediately stunned. It was a breath-taking city under the sea, gravity defying designs and fishes everywhere. How was there supposed to be a tree in a submerged city?

I asked around and got a friendly answer with directions. There was a tree at the central square. It was surrounded by an air-bubble held in place by magic. And at the base, among the many blue-haired fairies, I saw one sitting alone and looking as if she was waiting for someone without much hope that they would really show up.

"I... Nono?" I asked with Brienne's voice.

She just looked at me and I averted my eyes.

Finally, I couldn't bare the silence any longer.

"I'm..."

Suddenly I was enveloped by her hugging me as if there was no tomorrow.

"Stupid," she whispered, her voice cracking, "What took you so long?"

"I... uh... cosmetics," I mumbled, motioning up and down my body, which was fairly difficult since Nono was still hugging me.

"You are so vain," she laughed under tears and finally let go, took me by the hand and pulled me through the crowd.

"I know," I told her quietly, my smile barely noticeable.

She brought us to a small cafe and sat me down.

"Why wouldn't you write? Why... why wouldn't you tell me?"

"Because... well... didn't you see? I hid so long there was no way I could tell you."

"Yeah, so? I knew SAO wasn't what you really looked like," she told me, annoyed.

I almost jumped out of my chair. "What? How?"

Her look became amused. "Do you really think you can sneak out of our room, night after night, and I wouldn't ever follow you? I saw you looking at it. And from there with the way you always kept you voice down... well...", she trailed off.

The mirror. The goddamn mirror that I simply couldn't use and that always called to me. To be honest for the first time in my life.

"I'm sorry," I whispered.

"Sorry for what?"

"I'm sorry for lying to you."

"So you were lying when you told me you loved me?"

"No," I said so quick I forgot to whisper, "of course not!"

"Then you were lying when you showed me you'd rather be a cute little girl that bakes cakes?"

"No," I whispered, looking at my fingers this time.

"Then nothing else you could have lied about matters to me."

"It doesn't?" I asked weakly. She leaned over the table and kissed me.

In a repeat of yesterday she said: "I. Don't. Care." putting emphasis on every word by kissing me. I blinked a few tears away and kissed her back.

"So... will you please talk to me in school now?"

"Yes," I whispered.

"And bake me a cake as an apology?"

"It'll probably not be any good. I haven't got much experience baking for real yet."

"And cooking?"

"Some."

"Than you can make me a lunch, and when you are good enough I expect my apology-cake."

"Fine," I laughed, "you win."

She sat back and sighed heavily, but happy.

"Finally," she said, "you finally laughed again. I hate that empty look you always show."

"I'm sorry," I whispered in her ear, sitting down on her lap and not caring about the rest of the world for a few minutes for once. The catcalls we attracted went straight above our heads.


I always wondered why everyone took out the mirror at once.