Hello, hello! Long time no see! It's Kitten here, back here with a new chapter. I'm really sorry I wasn't able to post it until now! Schoolwork stressed me out, made my defenses lower, and I caught a cold. First day, I didn't even want to see anything electrical, for my head was killing me. Second day, homework. Third day, I wrote a bit, but the muse didn't help at all. Fourth, I spent it reading a bit. And like that. I got sick on Monday, and right now I began feeling better. Well, now with the story. I've been writing a lot in the spanish fandom lately, as you guys may have noticed, and I plan to return here for a while, though I don't think I'll be able to write so much. Please don't hate me about this chapter, I have my reasons to have taken things down this road, and I hope you guys aren't SO angry at the development. Well, that's all. Thanks for hearing me out. I got nothing to add, so on with the last chapter of After Story, first arc! Also I forgot! Happy eight birthday to Asuna (30th of September), and soon, happy 7th birthday to Kazuto! (7th of October) Today is a mid-point between the two! XS
Disclaimer: SAO and it's characters don't belong to me.
See ya down there! Please don't kill me! ^^U
It was Sugou. Nobuyuki Sugou.
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04/12/2030
12 days since birth
15:35
Asuna stood in the middle of the hospital's hallway, frozen in her tracks. Her eyes were wide open, her skin was sweating a lot, and her hand was still raised to open the door. But she decided it was better to listen.
"When will she arrive? You already made that false call, didn't you? She should be here already, worrying about her beloved 'Kirito'" He spat his name like it was the grossest thing he'd ever heard, and groaned "I can't stay here for long or I'll be found. You had to make sure she came, didn't I order you that?... Yeah I know, but that doesn't matter!" He sighed "Hey, Hiro, could you open the door? I need some fresh air"
Asuna quickly prepared herself for the worst, and held her head high as she dropped the hand that held the door, and watched as the door in front of her opened, the light coming from it blinding her instantly, but temporally, and she squinted her eyes slightly. When she was able to see well, she stared at the man who was standing in front of her, still holding the door. He was a very tall man, of dark hair, and piercing blue eyes. He was about a head taller than her, making it all the more difficult for her to make out his facial features. Probably already past his twenties. He was looking at her in evident confusion. She took the chance to peek over his side.
"Excuse me, but you're in the way. I came to see my husband" She said carefreely.
"Hmm..." He hummed, and made space for Asuna to go in. The hospital room was just like hers, but there weren't any flowers in the pot, and there was someone inside. He was sitting in the bedside chair, looking disgustingly at the body of a man, her husband. The man in the chair looked about forty, except for the fact that his hair had lost all colour, looking completely and absolutely white. He had an eyepatch over his left eye, and simple black-rimmed glasses over it. He wasn't wearing anything too formal, just a normal white shirt, long black trousers and a jacket. He seemed lost in his thoughts until Hiro's voice interrupted.
"Nobuyuki-san. Yuuki Asuna-san has arrived" He said, going back to the doorway, and closing the door.
"Well, well, well. Isn't this a pleasurable surprise? Don't you agree, Yuuki Asuna-san?" He said mockingly "Or may I call you Kirigaya Asuna now? You know, you could have waited for me to be freed before you married that brat! Not even an invitation card you sent me, and you're already holding his child!" He finished angrily, finally looking at her —still— inflated abdomen. It was obvious, to anyone who didn't know, she still looked like she was going to have a child. Apparently they didn't know she had been interned in that same hospital. Or maybe they knew, she thought, and stood on the defensive.
"Well, Sugou-san" She spat "Tell me why did you come here. Quick, before I call the cops" She warned, earning a small wince from the men.
"Hmm ... Smart I guess, but still not enough. You see, I'm here in a time limit because I haven't finished my time in jail, but, surprise my dear. I escaped from that horrible place" He explained, sarcastically "And while I was hiding, I just had the luck to find this boy crossing through the street. So, when the lights went green, I just made good use of my luck, and brought him here when he was unconscious
"Tell me a good reason not to call the cops right now, for you to rot behind the bars of the jail for a lot longer" She said, raising her phone that already had the number of the police marked and ready to be called.
"Wait a bit, dearie. I haven't finished talking just yet. You see, I have a good proposition, no, a very nice deal for you. I have injected this man right here with a drug. And the drug will come into effect before long, killing your beloved hero, who right now is your husband" She intook a sharp breath, but she didn't let him notice "So here's the deal. For now, I've also put a bit of the antidote to slow down the drug's effects. So, if you behave like a good girl and escape the country with me, I'll give him the whole antidote before we leave, saving the boy's life. That's all you have to do. Easy, right? In some countries it doesn't matter if you're married, we can just leave peacefully. And about the pregnancy, it's still not too late to get the whole abortion process going, you know?" "You know I'll never consent to such things"
"Oh, you will, my dear Asuna. For him" He motioned towards Kazuto's unconscious body "I'll get come get my answer tomorrow, right in this same hospital room at 4 am. I'll bring the antidote in case you do what's right. But you know? It would still be fun to just kidnap you and leave the brat to his death" He chuckled humourlessly "So choose. And consider your answer well. We'll meet again soon, my dear Asuna" He said, placing a hand on her tense shoulder, and then taking his leave.
When the door closed, she collapsed on her knees, her eyes going wide, and her body trembling violently as she wept.
"What should I do, Kazu-kun?" She breathed out, and sat in there. She didn't know for how long was she alone weeping to herself, but she knew it was a lot of time.
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05:39
Shino ran through the hallways of the hospital. To begin, she had been told that Kazuto was nowhere to be found. Then, she got the news that Asuna disappeared from her hospital room without a trail. And early in the morning, she had been told the reason behind Kazuto's dissapearance, and maybe even Asuna's; Kazuto was involved in a traffic incident. So there she was, running like there was no tomorrow through the white halls of a hospital to find him.
And so, she finally got to the door of room 1007. And when she opened it, she thanked her training to extreme situations, and refrained herself from screaming out in terror. In the bed, Kazuto laid. He looked like he got run over (thing he did), with a lot of small wounds, and scratches in his face and arms. But that wasn't exactly why she wanted to scream. There, lying on the ground lifelessly, was Asuna. Her dress was incredibly wrinkled, her eyes had enormous black circles under them. Her skin looked sickly pale. Her eyes were almost closed, and they looked red and puffy. Her nails were a disaster, like she'd torn them to shreds in her dispair. Her hair made a pool under herself. It looked disarranged and slightly humid. Her cheeks didn't have any colour, and there were dry tear tracks over them. Shino crouched down in front of her to feel her pulse, but she winced and quickly took her hand away. Her skin was extremely cold. She then tried again, and sighed in relief. It was faint and slow, but it was there. She quickly called the doctors, and they gave her the proper care
.
.
.
She was lying on a gel bed, she noticed. And there was a sharp sound of crying. It was a very known sound, and it made an alarm go up in her head. She began regaining consciousness.
"I get she's hungry, but it's not like Asuna can feed her in that condition" A voice said from her side. Most probably Kyouko being as overcaring as always.
"Mom?" She asked, slowly blinking her eyes open.
"Oh thank God. Maybe you can calm this little girl better than me" Midori said from the other side of the bed.
She handed her little Yui, who was crying as loud as her tiny lungs let her.
"Yui. What's wrong, honey?" She asked, cradling her to her chest, thing that didn't help much. "Oh, I get it. You're hungry"
The baby just kept wailing, until she managed to grab her mother's breast and began suckling on it.
"There you go. Good girl" Then, she looked towards her family and friends "Wha- What happened?
"You fainted from so much crying back at Kirigaya-kun's hospital room." Nurse Aki said, coming into the room "Asada-san here found you lying in the ground almost lifeless."
Then, she remembered the events from before her fainting, and felt her eyes swell with sorrowful tears. A tear ran down her cheek, and fell on Yui, who stopped feeding to look at her mom, and began crying again. Suguha looked at her with a trembling expression.
"There is nothing wrong with my brother, r-right?"
"Suguha-chan?"
"Yes?"
"I'd be lying to you if I said nothing was wrong" Asuna answered, her expression clouded with grief, as she calmed her small child down, and dried her tears slowly and carefully "Problem is, I can't tell all of you guys just yet, but I just- I just can't carry this burden by myself" She finished explaining, and sighed, feeling a part of the weight fall off her shoulders.
"Then, I'll carry that burden together with you" A voice from the side pronounced these words slowly.
"S-Sinonon!" Asuna gasped at her friend, who looked at her in decision, making it obvious that she was the one who said so.
"B-but, why?" She inquired, looking at her in confusion.
"The both of us have gotten better around each other, yet we are still so distant because of my past mistake, but I-I" She stammered, but quickly regained her composure "I must accomplish a promise I made"
Flashback OoOoOo
Kazuto and Shino where staring at each other severely. She wasn't wielding her bow, or her beloved Hecate II, but her stare was so piercing, that the mentioned man could almost feel a sharp arrow pointed at his neck. And he wasn't wielding his trusted twin swords, but the fighting spirit emanated from him as well, as if he was ready to take on any fight, no matter if it was in real life or in a game.
"What do you want with me? Why'd you call me out here if you weren't gonna say anything?" She asked, glaring at him more intensely.
"I called you here for a reason. You must know it already"
"Well, it's quite obvious that this is about that day, months ago. We'd been avoiding this kind of confrontations up until now. Why did you have to bring it up?" She asked, her voice breaking at the end of her sentence.
"Because, if we keep avoiding it, we won't be able to move on from the events of that day ever, or we may not be able to behave normally around each other ever again." He explained, his face as blank as a sheet of paper, so she couldn't read through it.
"Fine, what do you want to talk about within this topic?"
"I-I'm sorry, Sinon. I can't actually correspond your feelings, and I'm also in love with another person, who is to soon become my wife. But, I want you to move on. To forget about those feelings you once harbored, and to find someone who can love you back, just as you deserve. Because you're a beautiful woman, and you're very strong, but we we're not meant to be together-"
"But what if we were?" She asked, hope shining bright in her big, brown eyes.
"Then Asuna and I wouldn't have fallen in love with each other, and we weren't going to marry next week." He said, looking away from her shattered look.
"If that's all, can I leave?" She asked slowly and trembly, looking down, letting gloom cloud over her expression, and her bags cover her eyes. She turned around, and was about to leave, when Kazuto grabbed her hand.
"Wait! E-even if this is as it is, I have but two selfish wishes." He said, looking away from her.
"What are they!? And why can't you ask your fiancé to help you with those!?" She asked/shouted.
"Because she is not you!" Shino staggered back, but he pulled her by one hand, and firmly hugged her. Not as lovers, but he held her dearly "I know it's selfish! But I don't want to lose a friend I care about so much! I want us to still be friends, to talk to each other calmly like before! Is that too much...?" He asked, his voice barely above a whisper in the last sentence.
"I-it isn't, not at all. I-I want to try too. I just don't want to lose you either, and that's why I avoided talking to you alone at all costs." She explained sadly.
"Well, I say we give it a try, for it's better than nothing." He said softly, caressing her head, giving her a small sense of Deja vu.
"By the way, Kirito, you said that you had two selfish desires, and with the one just now, only one is missing. Mind telling me your second wish?" She asked, separating slightly frok the friendly embrace.
"Well, I- no...You are a very strong woman Shino, and I admire your strength a whole lot, so I thought I'd ask of you a small favor"
"A favor? What is it?" Shino asked him, tilting her head to the right in a parent confusion.
"As you already know, Asuna is pregnant"
"Yeah, and?"
"Right now, she's very defenseless, even with her current skill. And if something we're to happen to me, she would be an easy prey for all the dangers to come at her, and she'd probably be distracted by my absence, by the wedding plans, and by her pregnancy, and I'm really worried something bad may happen to her."
"So...?" She asked, motioning him to get straight to the point.
"If something happens to me, I want you to take care of Asuna in my place, at least until I can be back at her side. I beg of you" He finished, taking a step back and bowing deeply.
"I will. I promise I'll take care of her no matter what." She said, smiling, and cleaning her face "Now, we better go before people get suspicious." She snickered as he realized they'd called quite some attention to themselves. He blushed deep, and glared at her, but she only stuck her tongue out at him., and winked.
End of Flashback OoOoOoOoOo
"A promise...?" Asuna repeated questioningly.
"I'll explain it to you after this is finished. But for now, tell me what's going on, and what I can do to help you." By this moment, everyone in the room left them alone.
"I'll explain, but please don't shout or anything." Asuna said slowly.
"Alright. I promise I won't shout, or do anything that may compromise our secrecy"
"Okay, here goes nothing."
OoOoOoOoOoOo
About 20 minutes of explanation later...
"That bastard!" Shino cursed under her breath "So, what have you thought to do...?"
"I-I have actually thought of giving myself up and letting Kazuto-kun leave... But I know that'd be a coward's choice, so I thought that maybe we could let the a third party involved, thought secretly" Asuna explained slowly. Shino smiled in complicity.
"Girl, I know exactly who to get involved in this" Shino said
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04/13/2030
13 days since birth.
03:40 am
After everything was prepared and in position, Asuna walked through the halls of the hospital, in direction of the room 1007. The machines were a bit heavy, and she was deeply worried for her husband. And for safety reasons, Suguha, Midori, Shouzou and Kyouko had taken the task of taking care of Yui in the care unit.
When the room came into view, Asuna took a deep breath and steeled herself, at the same time fixing the small microphone hidden in her clothing. She put her hand to the cold wood of the door, and knocked slightly. The door opened from the inside, and she could clearly see Hiro standing in front of her, looking a Tad apologetic, like 'I'm sorry Yuuki-san, but this is my job' or so.
Asuna entered in the room, closely followed by Hiro, who shut the door behind them. The scene was very alike to the one of the day before. In the bed, Kazuto laid, but this time he looked paler. And in the beside chair, was sitting Sugou, though his hair was brown once again. Probably dyed overnight.
"Oh, my dear Asuna, you came" He said, a small poisonous joy pouring from his voice "I was afraid you'd let this man die because of the poison. Just now I'll have Hiro inject him with the rest of the antidote when you choose what's right." He said.
"Sugou-san" She pronounced slowly "First tell me. Why are you doing this? Why not just escape from the country just as you escaped from jail?"
"Because my job was my most important thing, and our marriage was something I'd been expecting ever since the both of us met. But then this boy came in and made me lose my job, and you too, for he married you and tainted you with his child" As he pronounced the last words, Asuna put both of her hands around her stomach protectingly, as to keep up the act and keep Yui out of it.
"But, you wished such despair to fall on me too?" She said under her breath.
"Huh?"
"You wished for that despair to fall on me too, didn't you?" She said, this time more clearly.
"What are you saying, dear? I'd never wish for something bad to befall on you as long as you're with me" He explained.
"But, to take me far away from the person I love isn't just cruelty...?" She asked, her voice breaking slightly.
"Well, it's certainly not my fault you fell for that boy. After all, if I must remind you, we met a long time before you got trapped in the death game Kayaba created." He said, shrugging off.
"Then, if I we're to say I'd go, you'd leave Kazuto-kun alone and not bother him ever again? Can you promise me at least that much?" The words took Sugou by surprise, and he staggered back slightly.
"W-well, I-I" He stammered
"I knew it. You can't even promise me not to keep tormenting him. In that case, you can just go rot in jail!" As she shouted that, the windows we're broken, and police officers entered in the room. The door was also taken down, and cops surrounded them.
Sugou's expression was clouded over. "I see, so you were tricking me all along, you bitch… In that case, you should just suffer for this!" He shouted, throwing the antidote vial into the floor, brokeaking it into millions of glass shards, the translucent liquid expanding in the ground. After this, he was taken by the police officers, along with Hiro, who confessed that Sugou had forced him to work for him, taking his daughter as a hostage.
The room fell into silence, accompanied only by the constant beeping sound of the heart monitor that was connected to Kazuto. That was when the constant and reassuring beeping she heard, accelerated hugely it's pace, worrying Asuna. Doctors and nurses came in instantly, and began running a thorough check on him, and two of them began pushing her out of the room.
"Sorry Miss, we need you to leave now…" They tried to reason to her.
"There is no way I'm leaving! Mark my words! He needs me right now!" She said, fighting back.
"Miss, it's dangerous, please stay outside!" One of them warned her.
"He's suffering! He needs my support! I need to be there for him!" She shouted. The moment seemed to transcur in slow motion. She got out of their grip, slid on the antidote that was on the ground and fell on her bottom, and all she could do was see and hear the occurrences in front of her. The quick paced beeping faded, and was painfully replaced by a single, constant note. And the doctors grabbed her by her arms, and took her away once again, this time with no resistance, she watched the doctors around Kazuto trying to defibrillate him, getting no visible reaction. His heart stopped.
"Kazuto-kun…" She breathed out in a broken voice, with a solitary tear sliding down her cheek "KAZUTO-KUUUUN!"
By then, she couldn't hear nor feel anything anymore. For she was broken...
~The End~
Alright, that's it. Now, I know you hate me, I know some of you will want to assassinate me or something, un-follow or un-favorite, but believe me, this part was necessary. Even I am sad with this T.T
Well, as always, hope you enjoyed (and probably cried), please leave me a review with your comments or opinions on the story, Follow and/or favorite if you like, you can also follow/favorite me, I love you guys, read you next time.
~Kitten.
