Whew! Finally had a chance to sit down and write this! Sorry for the long wait people! Things are nutty over here! Thankfully there's not too much to say in terms of my rambling, so we can just launch right into the chapter!
A Second Chance Chapter 11: A Fate Distorted
"There was a diva who gave courage to the swordsmen as they set off to fight... We must never forget any of the nameless players..." - The Complete Sword Art Online Incident Records
With a battlecry reminiscent of a rabid animal closing in on its prey, the group of half human creatures charged forwards, ignoring the passing blows and angry taunts that were thrown their way. What seemed like dozens of hideous little savages pounced upon her, the brave white clad girl, as she played a ballad upon her lute, her voice unfaltering as tears flowed down her face.
"I-... Please; I'm begging you!" A terror struck voice echoed above the song, it's owner watching in horror as he gazed pleadingly at the two tanks of the group. A young man no older than 18 clad in stark white and blood red armor, his eyes wide with panic. "Please! Save Yuna!..."
"We can't! We have to get rid of this guy first!" One of the men announced, blocking a blow from the boss with his sword.
"If we don't defeat the boss now, we'll be wiped out!..." The other added, "I'm sorry! There's nothing we can do!"
At that, both their blades began to shine with an otherworldly power, and with a loud cry both men threw their swords forwards. The edges cut deep into the digital flesh of the Warder, which let out a deafening howl of agony at the strike, it's soulless eyes flashing brightly as it snapped it's own weapon down, narrowly missing its attackers, who quickly sidestepped the oncoming blow.
But even as their leader fell, the minions seemed intent on the elimination of the lute player on the other side of the chamber, driving their weapons into her body relentlessly, the sounds of piercing flesh echoing almost as loudly as her song.
But through it all the girl remained unwavering. Even as spears and cleavers continued to carve into the virtual flesh surrounding them, her lungs refused to capitulate against the onslaught.
But just as if it seemed that song would continue on forever the Feral Warder Chief suddenly raised his snout and let out a roar, it's pitch reaching an ear bleeding high...
And then that melody that echoed throughout the chamber like a seraph's song, that symphonic cascade that seemed to carry the very of heart of those gathered standing against the dark...
Stopped.
"No... no... Yuna... YUNA!"
A small spherical crystal jar flew threw the air and hit the ground with a thud, it's ornate golden lid shattering into a thousand shards of glasslike data as a colorful array of candy spilled forth from its mouth onto the floor next to the young man in blood red and white. But he ignored them, letting out a lamentation of haunting screams that echoed throughout the room like the wall of a forlorn soul staring at a vision of death itself.
"Please!... Please help her! I'm begging you! Someone! Please!..."
He froze suddenly, unable to move, mid body twitching rapidly, almost as if his avatar was suffering a seizure, though the focus in his eyes remained. The eyes which were locked on the bushel of spears and demi-humans.
"YUNA!"
And then those eyes caught something different.
A flurry of purple light, for just an instant, drowned away the oppressive blue glow of the chamber, enveloping everyone in a bright violet glow as a large cluster of the monsters suddenly exploded in a shower of data, flitting into nothingness as they were carried away on a non-existent wind.
And in their place stood a girl with one of the demi-human's spears lodged in her shoulder. A pair of semi-transparent black wings retracted into her back as the severed head of one of the half human monsters lazily slid off the end of her loosely held sword, it too bursting into a shower of polygons by the feet of the lute player, who was staring at the purple haired girl in disbelief.
"...10 left... Level 40 and below... You guys can't even take one hit from Rosario, and it's an 11 hit combo..." Yuuki's eyes were dangerously narrow as she glared at the surrounding monsters, ripping the weapon from her shoulder and tossing it aside. "In other words..."
Her sword snapped to attention, the entire blade shining a bright shining violet hue as her wings unfurled once more, ready to launch her forwards as the demonic creatures standing against her visibly hesitated.
"...Back off."
One of the braver monsters was the first to move, though he paid for that courage with the razor edge of Yuuki's blade slamming against it's neck, effortlessly severing it's head as well as the top of it's spear, sending them both flying off into the distance, bursting into polygons as they hit one of the walls of the cage.
It was a flurry of blows and roars after that, as the rest of the pack seemed to grow enraged at the death of the courageous little cretin, charging at Yuuki and Yuna with singular killing intent.
This sudden rush of numbers seemingly did little more than expedite the rate at which rainbow shards of glass flew to the sky. Yuuki's sword tore through the small horde of monsters with ease, her weapon spinning and twirling as if performing a beautiful dance of death. With every swipe another demi-human fell. With every second that passed, a thinning of their ranks.
But those ranks were just as quickly replenished. For every assailant that fell, another seemed to take its place in a matter of seconds. It was a detail that hadn't been lost on the Imp swordswoman, "Tch... So it's that sorta boss fight, huh? Fine! Let's see what you little freaks can do!"
Her blade's glow only grew brighter as she continued deflecting monsters as they attempted to pounce on the lute player, cutting down the waves of minions with little effort.
Surprisingly the lute player soon joined her in her efforts, swinging a dagger wildly at any beasts which drew too close. With each monster that fell her smile seemed to grow in tandem. Her face began to display a glimmer of hope. Hope that was piercing through the curtain of resigned despair.
Yuuki glanced back.
"Hey!" Yuuki words were quick and concise as she called out to the lute player, "We've got this! Whatever you do, don't stop fighting, got it?!"
The lute player gave the Imp a determined nod, ducking an incoming blow before striking down her most recent assailant with a dagger to the heart.
Soon, just as it seemed as if there truly was no end to the little beasts, a deafening roar suddenly echoed throughout the room, accompanied by a shower of polygons as the boss fell to the floor in an explosion of color.
A chorus of cheers rose up from the group facing off against the boss, and soon the monsters assaulting Yuuki and the lute player let out cries of terror as the two tanks of the group slammed into their flank, cutting deep swathes in their ranks with each swing of their blades. Screams of monsters filled the room as the two tanks tore through the swarm with practiced brutality, their eyes alight with fury.
Even the white armored boy seemed to have recovered from whatever ailed his avatar, evidenced by the loud cry of rage he let out as he leapt atop one of the beasts and brought his hand down, his fingers glowing as they buried themselves into the monsters eye sockets, eliciting a screech of agony from the demi-human. It struggled desperately against the boy, yet was dead moments later when one of the tank's attacks struck the back of its neck, severing it's head from its body, which flopped uselessly onto the ground before dissolving away.
After what seemed like forever the horde of monsters finally dissipated, cut down by the renewed vigor of the rest of the fighters. The room now stood empty, save for Yuuki and the mysterious group of players.
As Yuuki glanced around, she let out a relieved sigh, "Phew! That was pretty serious. Had my blood pumpin' there!" She quickly spun to the lute player, plopping a hand on her shoulder, "You've got some lungs girl!"
The lute player however only seemed to stare out into space, tears coming to her eyes as a host of varying emotions flashed across her face in the blink of an eye.
Bewilderment, sadness, disappointment, and finally... Fear.
"You okay? You look like you've taken a spear or two." Yuuki grinned, assuming the girl had merely been startled by the last few minutes of fighting, only to falter when she noticed something rather strange. "Hey, what the?-..."
Her gaze was locked upon Yuna's ears.
They weren't Spriggin or Gnome or Imp or Leprechaun. Absent were the signature pointed ears of all the fairy races, instead just plain, and round.
They were... human!...
As this revelation struck her, her ears twitched as she suddenly becomes aware of the myriad of whispering occurring around her.
"Is she another one of the KoB?... Look, see? The cross!"
"Forget the cross dude!... She's got wings!..."
"That's a helluva unique skill..."
"Oh man, the rest of Fuurinkazan is gonna flip when we tell'em about this!..."
"Is it her? The Lightning Flash?"
"What? No! The Lightning Flash wouldn't be here, dimwit! Besides, she's wearing purple!..."
"Then who is she?"
"Dunno... Maybe she's some sort of special forces?"
Just as it seemed as if the crowd would never cease their murmurings a relieved cry echoed above the rest, driving all other's into humble irrelevance.
"YUNA!"
Yuuki glanced over just in time to see the armored boy rushing over to she and the lute player, nearly tripping over his own feet as he scrambled towards them with the grace of a baby deer learning to walk for the first time. His eyes were dancing with relief and his arms were open wide as he reached out towards the lute player, ready to embrace her the moment he drew near.
"Ooh, a boyfriend. That explains all the theatrics." The Imp waved over to the boy, cupping her hand to her mouth as she called out towards him, "Don't worry! She's just got a few scra-..."
CRACK!
Yuuki's breath hitched in her throat as the entire scene seemed to freeze just as the boy finally reached the young lute player, his fingers only inches from the girl.
"What?!-..."
"ALERT: ORDINAL SYSTEM CRITICAL MALFUNCTION! ALERT: ORDINAL SYSTEM CRITICAL MALFUNCTION! ENTERING DIAGNOSTIC MODE! POWERING DOWN ALL NON-CRITICAL PROGRAMS!"
"The heck?!-..."
Suddenly it was an explosion of color all around her, the sound of smashing glass pounding against her ears as a rainbow of polygons flew past her face.
She watched as every single figure faded away, watching as shards of them blew away like sand in the wind. Not one player was spared the sudden fate, with even the boy and the lute player faded away in mere moments, only the rapidly fading particles of color as evidence of their presence.
"Miss Yuuki?..." A tiny voice echoed once the room fell into silence once more, eliciting the Imp's attention.
"Yui!" Yuuki cries out as she whirled around. There was Yui, right where she had left her, though she was no longer wrapped loosely in her headband like some sort of sleeping bag.
Instead of the pixie Yui that Yuuki had come to know, a young human girl sat in her place, lazily looking up at the swordswoman with a dazed expression.
Yuuki quickly sprinted over, skidding to a stop on her knees before the girl, helping her to sit up. "Hey, you felling okay? What happened? You fainted from like 12 feet up, does your head hurt?"
"Fainted?... I-..." Yui's eyelids fluttered like the wings of a hummingbird, "I don't remember?-..."
"It's fine, it's alright. Don't worry, just take a break, your Dad'll work his magic and get you up and running again. You'll be okay in no time."
"No... No, that is unnecessary..." The girl mumbled as she pulled herself out of Yuuki's arms, sitting up straight as she held her palms out in front of her.
"Eh? Why?"
Yui came forward with no answer as she closed her eyes, her outstretched hands emanating a large string of numbers from her fingertips, which quickly surrounded the girl like a loose cocoon.
"Running Full Diagnostic."
"Ehh?"
It was like a tornado of information, an endless string of numbers flying past Yuuki's face as the girl she gazed down upon stared forwards with no discernible expression on her young face.
"Diagnostic evaluation complete, number of anomalies detected: 0.
Reason for system failure: Conflicting program.
Number of latent errors: 0. Rebooting Cardinal System."
A few moments later the multitude of numerical tendrils quietly began to shrink back into the girls fingertips, as if a puppet master was retracting their strings. The flurry of ones and zeroes that had dominated the room vanished in little more than a blink of the eye, and once again the massive chamber was rendered in an eerie calm.
"...Yui?"
Yui blinked and a moment later, as if her strange episode were little more than a figment of Yuuki's imagination, her retinas were in focus once again. She glanced up at the confused Imp, "Yes Miss Yuuki?"
"Uh... I mean-..." Yuuki shook her head. No, she couldn't pry. That had obviously been something to do with her nature as an AI program, and Yuuki was pretty confident in the assumption that Yui probably wasn't the type to share data info like that with anyone expect Asuna and Kazuto, "Nothin'. Just call me Yuuki, okay?"
But still, Yuuki thought as she gazed down at the girl, no errors at all?... How was that possible? She'd watched the girl faint with her own eyes. That wasn't 'okay', and there was no way Yui thought so either, unless she really did have some serious errors in the cranial department.
Regardless, Yuuki relented, offering the young girl a hand to her feet before she reverted back to her pixie form in a short burst of light, landing on the Imp's shoulder a moment later.
But as she did, Yui finally muttered something that quite nearly made Yuuki do a double take in surprise, "Miss-... Yuuki, can you not tell Papa and Mama about this?..."
"Why not?"
"Papa works hard enough! I don't want him worried about me!..."
Ok. No. There was no way even Yui could believe that what had just transpired was in any way shape or form something to write off as unimportant. "Yui-..."
"Please! I promise it won't happen again!" The pixie's hands clasped together in much the same fashion as Klein had with Kirito only an hour beforehand.
The only difference between the two? Yui could actually get results.
"...Alright, but if I see one more problem I'm telling them." Yuuki finally relented, and though she meant every word she said she gave Yui an assuring grin when the pixie still appeared rather worried, "We gotta deal?"
Yui gave her a nod, a bright smile finally returning to her face.
"Alright, well now that that's done, whaddya say we-..."
"Yuuki! Yui!"
The sudden cry caused the two aforementioned girls to turn to the entrance, watching as the mist that had sealed them off from their friends only minutes before slowly began to evaporate into the air, revealing the rest of their little the group between bars, charging sword skills as the melee fighters of the group all took turns wailing away at the rapidly deteriorating metal. Even Recon and Leafa were chipping in against the bars, though the blade which finally snapped the obstacle was none other than Asuna's. Her rapier struck the bars in such rapid succession, with a skill that was all to familiar to Yuuki, that they gave way as if they were little more than popsicle sticks.
Small pieces of inconsequential shrapnel flying past her face went ignored as Yuuki called out to her friends as she waved over, with Yui imitating the action, "Hey guys! What took ya? You missed all the fun!"
"We got a little caught up in some fun of our own." Asuna was the first to reach the two girls, encapsulating both in a tight hug that would've taken the air out of Yuuki in the real world, "More importantly, are you two okay? Did anything happen? I saw your HP bar go down! Did you fight something?"
"We're-... We're fine, I uh-... Think." Yuuki took in a puff of air as Asuna finally released her vice-like grip on the girl, "I think we were accidentally transported to another instance of the dungeon or something."
"Another instance? So that wasn't you that triggered the worm?"
"Eh?"
Kirito, along with the rest of the fairy group, soon caught up, "Boss monster spawned outside when you ran in. Ambushed us the moment we were separated."
"It didn't like Recon very much did it?" Klein rubbed the back of his head as he glanced back at the slightly ragged looking Sylph, "I mean I know it's supposed to try and hurt you, but jeez..."
"It felt like getting run over by a bus over and over again..." Recon looked as if he was about ready to curl up into a ball and disappear.
"Your own fault for standing in its way, dumbass." Leafa pointed out.
"Oh, he did alright, he just needed some healing was all." Asuna assured.
"He got beat down so hard his Amusphere nearly activated it's heart rate failsafe..." Sinon shot a look at the Slyph, who seemed to shrink back even farther, "We're calling that passable fighting skill?"
"Don't be mean Sinonon. You need healing sometimes too, you know."
Sinon's cheeks flushed.
"So what'd it drop?" Yuuki interrupted before Sinon could shoot a retort, shooting expectant glances at the rest of the gathered fairies, only to be met with hesitant faces. "Eh? The boss. What'd it drop?"
"Well, nothing believe it or not..." Klein spoke up, nods of confirmation coming from the rest of the party.
"He means we didn't kill it." Sinon added.
"Didn't kill it? How'd you get away?"
"Well that's just it. It disappeared." Kirito clarified.
"So then let's go after it!" The Imp insisted, turning her attention to the entrance. "What tunnel'd it go down? If we hurry we can still-..."
"No, you don't understand, the boss just-... Went poof!" Klein snapped his fingers, "Gone just like that!"
"Maybe it was part of the other instance too?" Asuna suggested.
"Or left there to guard it..." Kirito murmured, crossing his arms as he tapped his chin in thought.
"Guard it?"
"You think the devs knew about this error and just put a boss in place to keep people out?" Asuna glanced about. It certainly didn't seem like the sort of place that was sealed off to players, and if what Yuuki said was true, then there was another group of players here only moments before, which only poked further holes in the idea that this was anything other than a standard boss room.
"Guess they weren't countin' on Short-Stuff and her love of rushing headlong into the first fight she hears." Klein exclaimed as he plopped his hand on Yuuki's head.
"Hey! I don't-... I mean..." Yuuki's cheeks puffed into a pout as she glared up at the Salamander, "...Jerk."
A small chorus of laughter rang out over the group as whatever tension was left over from their previous encounters wafted away into the wind with their laughter.
"Well, now that that's over, whaddya say we head back?" Asuna suggested, earning nods all around.
"Ooh! Ooh! I know! There's a bar in Yggdrassil City that's got a discount for buff foods going on right now!..." Leafa exclaimed with a snap of her fingers.
Yuuki's face lit up in an instant, "Really? Well then let's stop dragging our feet around here and-... Ack!"
"Not so fast!"
"Aw! Sis!..." The Imp whined, futilely attempting to wriggle her arm out of Asuna's iron grip, though to no avail as Asuna held her back like a bear with a panicking salmon locked in its jaws.
"You're going to be walking like the rest of us." Asuna chirped, a cheery smile on her face despite the near death grip she had on the purple haired Imp. "You go on ahead guys, we'll take up the rear!"
"No! No! Noooo!"
Klein quietly watched with a smile on his face as the rest of the group made their way out of the chamber, followed closely by Asuna and the flailing Yuuki close behind.
It truly was strange.
If someone had asked him only a week or two ago if he thought resurrection was at all possible, he would have laughed and denied the possibility as little more than a bible story or a fantasy plot line.
Yet now?... Now the proof stared him right in the face. Heck, the proof was bunking in his spare room.
And as for Yuuki herself, Klein had to admit that she had taken reintegration in stride. When he had first come out of the SAO servers, he found himself constantly checking for his menu or reaching for his sword. It had become a subconscious part of him. Perhaps being able to hop into ALO at will helped Yuuki with such issues, but he couldn't say for sure either way.
Oh well. He was just thankful she wasn't going through the same predicament. That would have been-...
Clack!
Klein glanced down as he watched a lone white and light blue object bounced uselessly across the room by way of the tip of his shoe, skidding to a halt a few meters away from the Samurai.
Making his way to investigate, Klein brought the item up into the dim light squinting as he murmured to himself, perplexed at the nature of the object in his hands.
"The heck's a lute doing here?..."