Author's Notes: first and foremost, I would like to apologize for how long this one took. It was a combination of having to deal with my dysfunctional family and getting caught up in the hype of the new season of Sword Art Online (new episodes every Saturday!). Also, after last chapter I swore to not cut another chapter's planned content short because of size, but I ran a bit overboard on this one. That is also why it is split into two parts, for ease of reader use. I love the feedback you guys have been giving me, and I will continue to try and get out new chapters as soon as possible. Please enjoy chapter 4, and tell me what you think in a review!
Year: 2 SAOHI (Sodo Ato Onrain Hatsubai Irai)
What was Kirito thinking, blurting our relationship out like that? Asuna thought angrily as she dragged her husband by his arm back to their bedroom. It wasn't that she didn't enjoy his sudden outburst of affection, but still, in front of their guests? Kirito IS a loose cannon, she thought to herself, in both our relationship and as a player. Sometimes he was positively stunning, but sometimes she wondered how she had fallen in love with such a klutz. Then again, Asuna thought, that is part of the reason why I do.
The bedroom door was pushed open and swiftly closed behind them. No need for them to disturb their guests, after all. From what Asuna had seen after the hike from the warp point to their house, plus however long they had been fighting and traveling before Klein's guild had run into them, they were exhausted. Though having just met them, Asuna couldn't help finding their guests interesting. Otherwise, why would she have suggested that she and Kiriro be entrusted with their supervision? The brown-haired boy, Jean his name was, was in particular amusing. By now used to the unfortunate truth that a lot of the male players couldn't take their eyes off her, Asuna had thought the reaction from him when Kirito had explained just HOW unavailable she was had been downright hilarious. Nevertheless, there were things that bothered her about them, even if they were just highly amnesiac players she had originally thought they might be, things that seemed to evidently bother her husband as well. But what was rushing through her mind right now was important to only her and him.
Kirito sat next to her on the bed, looking at her with that cute look he had that sort of reminded her of a puppy that knew from it's master's demeanor it had done something wrong, but was unsure what. She was nervous about what she was going to ask. It was one of the most taboo subjects to talk about in SAO, after all. "Kirito." She said slowly, looking down at the floor "Back there in the forest...something Armin said...made me think about something."
"What is it?" He said, gently taking her hand. He had obviously been expecting some sort of scolding for being more upfront than usual, and she could see him visually relax.
"Well," Asuna said, raising her head to meet Kirito's coal-black eyes, "he asked us about...family names in Aincrad. That just had me thinking, we've promised each other everything, right?" She said, tension rising in her.
"Asuna...I...of course..." He said, his eyes widening as he began to realize just what she meant.
"I know it's not something we're supposed to talk about. The real world is waiting for us, if we ever clear this game...but I want to know...if we were married in that world, with our real names...what would my new family's name be?" She looked at him expectantly. He nervously looked at the bed, then murmured something softly. She frowned, which caused Kirito upon looking up to get that scared puppy look again. Her husband took a deep breath, and said softly: "Kirigaya. My family name is Kirigaya."
"Kirigaya." Asuna said slowly. She could just picture it. "Kirigaya Asuna. I like the sound of it." She said, and kissed him. He was blushing as red as the off color of armor that she had yet to change out of.
Then, he gasped as he realized something. He gazed into her "Asuna...you used your real name as your player ID...?"
"I never really thought about it when I made it...yes. Asuna is my name in the real world as well." Asuna said, gasping herself as she realized that she had never told him, never told anyone other than that accidental conversation with Argo two years ago. It's been so long since I thought about it. No one else I know uses their real name, not even Kirito, she thought to herself. Then, she realized what her last thought actually meant. Oh my god..."Kirito." Her husband shifted nervously, realizing what Asuna was about to ask, though his eyes never lost contact. "That's not your real name, is it?"
"No, it's not." He said, looking ashamed at having not told her.
"Hey," she said, placing her other hand on his. "we never thought it was neccasary. Everything in here, in SAO, those are the names we knew each other by. The love we feel is real, but the name I grew to love is Kirito." She smiled slightly, and he seemed to soften. "But still, I want to know."
"It's Kazuto."
"Kazuto. Oh, I see. KIRIgaya kazuTO. KIRITO." His player name is a portmanteau of his real name, Asuna realized. That's actually kinda cute.
"Yeah. Do you..." He began, but a urgent, knocking hammered on their door. Now?! Well, I did tell them to knock. Kazuto, no, he was still Kirito to her, got up to get the door. "Let me." Asuna said softly, rising from the bed. "And yes, I like it." She said. She almost laughed at her husband's relieved expression. "After all we've been through, do you think I'd be put off by a name?"
The knocking grew EVEN MORE insistent. "We're coming!" Kirito yelled, annoyed.
"You know." Asuna said as she walked to the door, "we should probably change out of our combat gear. After all, we have company."
"Oh, uh, yeah." Kirito said, flipping his menu open and scrolling to the Equipped Items section. One by one, his two swords and his coat disappeared in brief white-blue flashes, leaving him dressed in a simple featureless set of a black t-shirt and pants. Asuna flipped through her own menu with one hand whilst reaching for the door with another. Her trusted rapier, Lambent Light, vanished into the virtual ether of the SAO Item Storage System, while her light guild-stylized armor was replaced with her casual attire in the same flash. She opened the door to find Jean, with the short one, Armin standing right behind him. The brown-haired boy began to speak: "Asuna, we have some questions about..." his voice trailed off as he noticed her change in apparel, which promptly earned a chastising glare.
Armin sighed, and finished: "we need to know what exactly Aincrad is." He took a deep breath, and Asuna could tell what he was about to say was important. By this point, Kirito had come up behind Asuna, causing Jean to back off a bit more. "We need to know...because tens of thousands of lives may depend on it." He says that with such conviction, Asuna thought to herself. Is their amnesia really that bad that they don't know that there are less than ten thousand players left in SAO? Or that this is even a virtual world?
"I have an idea: We'll fill you guys in on Aincrad, but I'm hungry, so can we do that over dinner? Asuna here's a master chef." Kirito said, putting him arm around her. While she appreciated the compliment, Asuna could tell that Armin and Jean did not like whatever perceived matter of importance they had to discuss being demoted to dinner conversation. Noticing their doubt himself, he added:"And she's making her Meat Surprise tonight, isn't that right Asuna?" He glanced at her and winked. She just sighed at her husband's antics, but surprisingly they seemed to have an effect on their guests. Jean appeared about to faint from happy surprise, and while Armin kept himself composed, he softly asked: "Meat? Did you say you have...meat? We haven't had meat in 5 years...since Shiganshina fell."
Kirito knows there is no such dish called "Meat Surprise", somehow he knew they were craving some meat. Ah well, thought Asuna, guess I'm making a meat dish tonight. Now, what to make? Deciding on a venison stew, she turned to their guests. "Dinner should be ready in about 20 minutes, you really should rest until then. If what I saw back there in that forest was any indicator, you guys have had a rough day." The returned looks conveyed a definite you-have-no-idea. The two nodded, and Armin and Jean walked back to the living room. Asuna then turned to Kirito and pinned him against the hallway wall.
"What!?" He asked, returning to the hurt puppy look.
"Now that we've told each other, I want to know. Is there anything else you're not telling me?" She asked, trying to be serious, though she could feel a playful look cross her face.
"N...no! What, do you think I'm hiding something?" He responded.
"You knew they wanted meat, how could you have known that?"
"I overheard Jean talking with Reiner on the way here, when they saw a deer-type monster in the forest between here and the warp point. That's all."
"Eavesdropping, huh?" Asuna asked, sighing even as she asked as she knew the answer. Kirito nodded. "That's rude, you know." She smirked when he got a hurt look, "Now, if you'll excuse me, thanks to you I have a stew to make."
After about 25 minutes, the stew was ready. Asuna missed cooking in the real world a little. While it was a lot easier in SAO having your pound of deer meat disappear in a flash and rematerialize as neat little chunks the minute you applied your knife, it took a bit of the fun out of it. In either case, she had miscalculated the correct flavor replication time to get the right flavor for cooking the potatoes, and it had taken the girl a little while longer than her estimate. So when Asuna finally carried the steaming pot to the table, the four boys were already sitting around waiting for her.
Since Asuna and Kirito only had three chairs, her husband had had to pull over one of the couches from the living room, upon which Reiner and Jean were seated. Armin had taken the third chair next to the couch at one end of the table, which was for if Liz or Agil or Klein stopped by. Asuna had wanted more chairs when they were buying from the furniture merchant NPCs in Algade for their new house, but Kirito had reminded her that they had already blown most of their reserve Col on the house itself. So instead, next to Armin on the right of the table was a couch for their other two guests to sit on. Kirito sat, his hands folded back behind his head in relaxed anticipation of the meal, on Armin's left, where he pulled out the final empty chair for her to sit. Asuna placed the food down and obliged.
As she pulled the lid off the pot, she recieved several joyous sighs from their guests as the smell of meat flooded their nostrils. She noticed, somewhat annoyed, that they were still wearing their green cloaks. "Why don't you take off your cloaks, they look like they could get hot in here, and you wouldn't want to get food on them would you?" She asked.
Armin, looking somewhat embarrased, responded, "We tried but..." He tugged on the cloak as if to pull it off as one would in the real world, "...we can't. What is this?"
Asuna giggled a little, though a darker thought crossed her mind. Just how much of their memory could they have lost to not even know how to operate the basic SAO user interface? "You don't take off clothes like that in SAO, Armin. Open your menu and tap the minus sign on the gear you want to remove under Equipped Items."
Armin just stared at her blankly, his eyes like saucers, trying to comprehend what the girl meant. Then he opened his menu, scrolled until he found the Equipped Items screen, and gasped. "All the stuff with me, it's right here!" He exclaimed. Jean and Reiner opened their own menus and looked, themselves looking surprised at the list in front of them. They seemed to be getting over the initial shock of the menu itself though.
Out of the corner of her eye, Asuna noticed Kirito looking over Armin's shoulder at the boy's items. "Here," he said, pointing at one of the items, "Scout Regiment Cloak. Is this it?" Armin nodded, and tapped the button to de-equip it. His green cloak vanished into thin air with the trademark blue flash of SAO.
The boy blinked at where his cloak had once been, and then again. "What's this?" Kirito asked, bringing Armin out of his shock. Kirito was indicating another one of his items.
"Kirito..." Asuna sighed. While she was just as curious about their strange guests, she was a little annoyed at his actions, given how rude it was to look at another player's menu without their permission.
"That's our manuevering gear." Armin said, indicating the metal boxes slung to their sides that Asuna noticed they still had out. He tapped the item Kirito had indicated, and they too vanished. This prompted worried looks from Jean and Reiner. Do we really have to explain everything? wondered Asuna.
"Don't worry, anything you de-equip can be retrieved later from the same menu." Kirito said, which though it looked like it caused their even more puzzlement reassured Reiner and Jean enough that they also removed their cloaks and gear. Finally, they began to eat.
After about 5 minutes of silent feasting though, Jean spoke: "That...this is the best food I've eaten since I joined the army."
"Given all you've said earlier, I assume you don't mean the Aincrad Liberation Force when you say the Army?" Kirito asked. Seeing it not likely given their level of knoweledge in SAO, Asuna doubted it, but she hoped not just in case. The ALF, often referred to simply as the Army, was infamously dictatorial in it's rule of the lowest floors.
"Liberation Force? No, I've never heard of it. And liberation from what?" Jean said. The others shook their heads, having never heard of it either.
"You said someone named...Kayaba...trapped you all somehow." Armin said, stuttering a little. "Is that what they are trying to liberate you from?"
"That's what they say, anyway." Asuna said softly. "But for over a year now they seemed to have given up on trying to clear the game." We haven't seen any Army members on the frontlines since Floor 54. Except, she thought, for that suicidal attack on the 74th Floor Boss. If Klein, Kirito, and I hadn't been there... Asuna shuddered.
"Clear...the game?" Armin asked, looking utterly without comprehension, "what do you mean by game?"
"SAO, of course." Asuna replied. Oh wait, they don't know this is a game... She thought, horrified at the door she realized she had just opened.
"And, I want to know NOW," Jean said, the atmosphere at the table growing very serious, "what is SAO?"
Asuna opened her mouth to respond, but Kirito beat her to it. "Sword Art Online, or SAO for short, is the world's first fully-realized virtual reality video game. At least, it was supposed to be a game."
"Virtual reality...video game...what does that mean?" Armin asked, his expression telling Asuna he knew he wouldn't like the answer.
"This world...these bodies...everything...it's not real. It's just a simulation in our heads. There's this thing...called a Nervegear...you out it over your head like this," Kirito said, miming an action every SAO player had done two years ago and almost all had come to regret, "and it sends and recieves signals from your brain, making the world you see, hear feel, and interact with the virtual one of SAO."
"And you're saying," Jean said, looking horrified at the prospect yet skeptical, "that we are all in this Sword Art Online game?"
"Yes." said Asuna "Do you really remember nothing at all? Nothing about the real world?"
"What I remember" Reiner's low voice finally spoke, "is my entire life living in fear of the Titans. My fifteen years of life." They're only 15 and already in some sort of military, or at least they think so, Asuna thought. When I was 15, my biggest concern was doing well on the national examinations, not being a soldier...at least, until I put the Nervegear on...then, like them it seems, it was survival... Seeing a pattern in the the words of their guests, Asuna asked a question: "What are Titans?"
Jean and Reiner both grew pale. "So...it's true...you really don't know..." Jean said, visibly shaking.
Slowly, Reiner spoke: "Titans are giant creatures that look like horribly misshapen humans, who seem to exist for the sole purpose of killing humans."
"They kill their prey..." Armin said, shuddering even as he thought about it, "by eating them." Oh God, Asuna thought. And...as much as I want to not believe what they say and put it down to the amnesia...what Klein said, and the way he was acting after we came through the portal...what he must have seen...could these Titans be real? She visbily tensed.
If anything, her husband looked even more mortified. "And if what Klein said to me back in the clearing is true," Kirito said, growing more scared by his own train of thought each second, "they are almost impossible to kill conventionally. Is that true ?"
"Yes." They all said simultaneously, then looked surprised at each other.
"As a measure of fighting skill, how does Klein and his...guild compare with the other humans in...SAO?" Armin asked, finally starting to accepts some, though not the, facts of what seemed to him the utterly impossible reality of being in a VRMMO.
"While they are not as elite as the Knights of the Blood Oath under Commander Heathcliff you met earlier," Kirito responded, "I've known Klein since the start of this death game and he, along with his guild Fuurinkazan which he trained himself, are some of the fiercest fighters in all of SAO, and have been on the front lines for a while now."
"Then, if the Titans came here, to Aincrad," Armin said, seeming saddened by his own words, "most of you would probably die." While these Titans sound terrifying, Asuna thought, I'm actually a bit hurt. Does Armin really think this low of our fighting skill?
Kirito was obviously thinking the same thing. "Hey!" He shouted, "we've survived in here trapped in SAO for two years against every type of monster Kayaba's thrown at us! These Titans can't be that much different!"
"Three years." Jean said in a quiet voice.
"What?" Asuna asked.
"Three years." He said again. "That's how long our Cadet Corps, the 104th, trained for the military. For three years we were trained for the sole purpose of fighting and killing Titans, to protect humanity. We thought we were ready." He shook his head, as if still ashamed of such naive thinking. "A couple months ago, a day before our graduation, the Titans attacked the city of Trost, my hometown. Along with the main strength of the Garrison Regiment in that section of Wall Rose, our class of about 200 cadets were sent into battle, as part of the support wave." The way he's talking, Asuna thought, they were slaughtered weren't they?
"Thomas Wagner was the first casualty..." Armin began. Asuna realized that there were tears welling in his eyes from the memory. "A variant Titan came out of nowhere and swallowed him whole. Then...it broke into chaos. I was paralyzed from fear atop a building where my squad was. I..." Armin's voice raised into a shout, "watched as the Titans devoured them all!" There was a clatter as Kirito dropped his spoon. Asuna felt her mouth hang agape in horror, imagining it. The screams, the terror...
"Of the 200 or so members of the 104th sent into battle..." Jean said, " less than 70 returned alive from Trost."
"Three years, and you were still annihilated?!" This can't be true, thought Asuna. There's no way this amnesia or memory replacement or whatever. It's just too intricate, too real. And Kirito trusts Klien, and if Klein saw these Titans on the other side of that portal, then they must be real. An utterly horrifying thought then crossed Asuna's mind. If these three could come through the portal, those Titans might be able to as well... A series of possible outcomes flashed through her head. Algade in flames. A group of civilian players backed against a wall, a massive shadow bearing down on them. The valley where their house was filled with massive nondescript humanoids. Kirito, locking eyes with her...from within a giant's mouth.
"We told you what the Titans were; be glad your world is free of them." Armin said. "Now, I want you to explain. If this is a...virtual reality...which you seem to not want to be in, can't you just exit or something?"
"No." said Kirito. Asuna was glad he was taking that one, she was still recovering from the images in her head. They kept reverberating, over and over, despite how much she wanted them not to. "Sword Art Online was the first game designed to be played entirely in a mentally-generated virtual reality. Asuna and I along with 9,998 other players who at the time called themselves lucky for scoring one, were able to get copies before the first day, so that we could play immediately when the game server first activated. However, the game's creator, a man named Akihiko Kayaba, disabled the logout function, which would have allowed us to detach our minds from our game forms, called avatars," he waved his hands over his body for emphasis, "and resume our normal lives in the real world."
"From what little I understand of it from what you've said," Armin began, "couldn't someone from what you call the real world remove the Nervegear from your body?"
"Kayaba anticipated that, and set it so any attempt to disconnect it from the outside once he sent the code to seal us in would result in the Nervegear's power source to destroy our brains, killing us. Also, you know the concept of a game being fun is because unless you are gambling or something there are no real consequences, right?"
"I guess so, yeah..." Armin said.
"In most games, if you're defeated you just restart or quit, but in SAO...Kayaba madre it so that if your avatar dies, your real body will suffer the same fate is if someone had tried to remove the Nervegear."
"Still," Jean said, "that doesn't sound so bad. Without Titans around what could possibly be that big a danger?"
"This is a game about combat, usually with a sword. Hence the name Sword Art Online. Other than the player vs. player combat through usually non-fatal honor duels, in order to get stronger one has to go out in the wilderness and fight dangerous creatures created by the SAO system. But many people have been outfought, run out of crystals or weapons, or simply walked into a trap." Kirito's expression grew more pained, from an old memory he had shared with Asuna and no one else. "In the two years since Kayaba turned Sword Art Online into a game of life or death, 4,000 players have left both this world and the real one...forever."
"But why would they risk themsleves like that if they know that they might die?"
"Because for every monster another player slays instead of you, that betters their chance for survival and decreases yours, thanks to the limited rescources of these types of games. And becuase every player wants to return to the real world, to the lives we left behind when we put on the Nervegear. Kayaba said the only way to break the seal would be to clear, or defeat, all the boss monsters, which are very hard to kill and require increasing levels of skill and equipment to slay, in Sword Art Online."
"And these boss creatures, how deadly are they to humans?"
"Klein first described the Titans when I came through the portal as if they were minor field bosses, which he thought they were at the time. A minor field boss is the easiest type to slay, but engaging one alone is usually suicide. In total, there are over a hundred bosses in Aincrad, the worst of which are Floor bosses."
"There are thousands of Titans." Armin said quietly. Kirito let out a quiet gasp. "In our world, humanity only managed to survive this long by cowering behind our massive Walls, which I mentioned earlier, that even the Titans cannot normally get through."
"You talk about it as if it's the entire human race, just how many people are in your world, and how big is it?" Asuna asked. While my theory about their amnesia seems less and less likely to be right, they seem terrified of these Titans and for good reason. The way Armin asked if there were Titans in Aincrad, I think he has an idea if how we can help them. I want to know what that is.
"There are just over a million humans left behind the Walls."
"One mi-million?!" Kirito spluttered. If the conversation had been less serious in nature, Asuna might have laughed. A...million people...if they were able to enter SAO they must be from some sort of virtual world, but one with a million people, does that even exist? "I...think I've lost my appetite for now."
"Now those are words I never thought I'd ever hear you say, Kirito." Asuna, said, chuckling nervously. It did little to defuse the visible tension that had arisen from the conversation. If this is...real, though Asuna, we've both just stumbled into worlds other than our own.
Looking a little pale, Reiner pushed his plate away. "I think I have as well."
"Yes," Jean said nervously, "thank you for the wonderful food, Asuna, but I think we need time to process." Armin nodded his agreement, and their three guests stood up. They looked to Asuna, and sighing, she nodded. We did just drop the game bomb, after all, she thought. But they're not the only ones with unanswered questions. What kind of virtual world did they come from? A million people...Titans...and they keep insisting this is the real world...
Author's Notes: Once again, thank you for your patience and I hope you enjoyed it. Seeing as I got so much done writing from one POV and technically one chapter sequence, I split it into two chapters here for ease of reading. So please by all means leave a review and advance to part 2!