July 12, 2023. Floor 20.
Kyou Komoto:
"Kyou-kun, wake up sleepyhead."
I didn't want to. I don't want to stay another goddamn day in this goddamn game. I don't want to grind for more goddamn Cor to buy more goddamn equipment to fight more goddamn monsters for goddamn EXP for goddamn levels to get more goddamn strength to fight stronger goddamn monsters to get more EXP to... To what? To die? To die, to sleep. To sleep, perchance to dream. Hamlet rings in my head, stained from the relentless hours of rehearsal a few years ago. "To be," I begin aloud, "or not to be? That is the question," Tomoyo looked at me strangely, as if I was speaking French, "Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, a sea of...a sea of...crap." God I forgot, wow, wow how could I forget that? I balled my fingers into fists and hit them against my forehead.
"And by opposing, end them?" My head flew up to look at Tomoyo as she brightly smiled at me.
"What?" I asked hastily.
"What?"
"How do you know that?"
"Oh, you mean the most famous and most recognizable piece of literature ever? Gee, I sure do wonder." She playfully winked at me.
I sat indian-style secretly admiring her. Her attention was easily shifted to a brilliantly colored butterfly type of creature that happened to be flying by. She stared at it, mouth wide open and her whole head followed it as it flew past.
I noticed I was smiling and quickly made my face turn sour again. How could a helpless girl like her have made it this far alone? I debate whether or not to ask her if she came into SAO alone or if she's lost someone along the way. But that's so personal and it'd be awfully rude to ask that. Or maybe I'm just being prudish. Damn, I don't even know.
"Kyou-kun, what're ya' thinkin' 'bout?" she asked me, then immediately followed up with an extravagant smile, inching closer to me.
"Why are you talking like that?" I asked in a rather rude tone that wasn't on purpose.
"Li' wha'?" she said giggling. I let my head fall forward and appear limp in disapproval. "Oh c'mon, lighten up dude." I silently agreed. I'm probably being too serious. I tried giggling along with her, but only squealed awkwardly.
After the sound's echoes were done echoing she looked at me dumbfounded. "What was that? You're mating call?" She laughed hysterically at her own jab.
"Yeah, it's pretty hot isn't it?" I did it again, but louder and on purpose this time. Tomoyo rejoiced with laughter, holding her sides and nearly choking on herself. She made random arm movements and shook her head from side to side.
"Stop!" she ordered, still laughing. I laughed along with her, until her face suddenly looked serious.
"What? What's wrong?"
Tomoyo grabbed the top of my shirt and softly pulled me to her. Her eyes closing slightly, she moved forward with her lips barely spread apart. My hands shook violently and chest felt hollow. I pushed her so she landed on her back and stood up.
"What are you doing?!"
Anzu's face burned vivid in the back of my mind. Her long black hair and pink thin lips. My gums felt icy, and teeth dug into my tongue.
"I-I'm sorry Kyou-kun, I don't know what I was thinking." She looked down and held her own hands as she turned herself away from me, embarrassed.
"It's not a big deal; don't worry about it," I told her. We sat in silence for a few moments, relaxing, embracing the awkwardness between us. I became lost in thought thinking about useless things like why oxygen is breathable. I thought of Gray n' Waste and laughed when I remembered how Horn was so proud of that table he built. My eyes widened when I realized something. All my things are still in my drawer. I stood up, wiping any dirt from off my butt, and asked Tomoyo if she'd be up for a pretty big hike.
"To where?"
"Gray n' Waste."
She questioned why and when I explained everything to her she was pretty excited to go. She gathered all her things and put out the fire that's been self-sustaining for a while now. Once I realized I have no idea where we actually are, I asked her, and she said she didn't exactly know.
"When I found you I was just aimlessly walking, so once I picked you up I panicked to find a safe area and this just happened to be the closest one nearby."
"Do you remember which way you came from, though?"
She pushed her lips together and looked around a complete three hundred and sixty degrees. She looked sharply in one direction for a moment, then shrugged.
"Do you have anything? Like a compass or a map?"
She nodded and approached me, revealing a map she had crumbled in her main pocket. I'm not really the best with maps but from what I could tell we were in bum-fuck nowhere. "There are literally no landmarks near us for like, maybe ten kilometers." She sighed.
"Well at least I have a map." She has a point, so I didn't complain any further. I continued to look at the map but it wasn't in Japanese so I couldn't read it. It was in either French or English, I can't tell. I'm guessing English.
"Can you read English?" She nodded.
"My mom is from North America," she said proudly, "I'm half-white. It's pretty cool; I get to travel to a state called Florida every summer. It's bea-"
"You're getting off topic." She made a pouty-face and looked at me grudgingly.
"O.K., what is this lake here called?" I pointed to a huge lake that took up literally a fourth of the map. If it was the Erianta Lake then I knew exactly where we were.
"It's the... Ear...eee...an..." she struggled.
"...Erianta?"
"Yeah, that."
"Good," I said with a smug smile, "I know exactly where we are!"
"So where on the map are we?" She held the map out for me.
"Right..." I dragged my pointer finger around looking for where we were but my finger slowed as I realized I have no clue where we actually are. When I failed to point, Tomoyo sighed and shook her head disapprovingly.
"Since neither of us know where we are, why don't we try to get an idea by climbing a tree or something." She looked up at the monstrously giant demon trees around us. "Well, by 'we' I mean you." I'm not no goddamned ninja. I made a long and drawn out 'hmm' sound until she got the point. She sighed and rolled her eyes. She seems to do that a lot.
"Fine," I said with a single breathe. I looked down the tree that stood towering before me. I gulped and began to contemplate how I might actually climb this thing. "Uhh..."
"What's your dexterity like?"
"I'm pure-dex."
She both scoffed and laughed at the same time, which is a weird sound. "No, seriously."
"Yeah, seriously."
"That's insane," she commented. I felt pissed. Her thinking less of me or something really just bothered me.
"Okay well, watch this. Prick."
With that I drew a dagger and gripped it firmly, and in my other hand I held onto a kunai that, attached at its butt, was a chain long enough to throw and yank back.
I eyed Tomoyo once more, and, at about fifty meters away from the giant demon tree, I took off. About ten meters away from the tree I pushed upwards with all my might, jumping as high as I possibly could, once in the air and nearly at the tree's surface, I lunged forward pushing my dagger into the bark. Once it was firmly into the bark, I pulled upwards on it, consequently spinning myself around it.
I loosened my grip so I'd spin faster, and, taking full advantage of my momentum, let myself fly back-first higher up. I turned my head and hastily looked for a branch that was within the correct distance, and once found, I threw my kunai in its direction. The chain circled around the branch as I began to feel myself losing speed. The chain tightened itself around the branch, and I began to fall backwards, but with a rather abrupt pull, I was left hanging onto the dagger's handle. I looked down. My palms immediately began to sweat with the realization of how high I actually was.
I gripped the chain coming from the handle, and climbed it like a rope in gym class. Once I made way to the branch, finally, I took a moment to regain any composure I might've nervously lost, and then slowly but surely continued my siege up the never-ending tree. Once at the top I was able to peer out from behind hundreds of thousands of leaves, and what I saw was awe-inspiring. A smooth landscape not far from here, one that reminded me of the desert the Gray n' Waste was native to. A beautiful blue lake that went on further than I was able to see. Snow-capped mountains way off in the distance, that I knew just past them was a town that Tomoyo could find rest in. I smiled.
A strong gust of wind pushed me, I lost my grip, oh shit. The fall down was much quicker than the rise up. Needless to say.
I couldn't exactly feel my body at this moment in time, it was cold and icy and I'm probably under a paralysis condition. I heard Tomoyo giggling not too far from me, as her footsteps grew louder with each step. "Wow Kyou-kun, that was really something to marvel at. Well, up until where you fell from grace. Literally," she bite her finger as she said this, trying her hardest not to continue laughing at me. She gasped. "Poor baby, your health is in the yellow!" She ran to my side and took to her knees grabbing both of my hands, unsure of how to help.
Poor baby? Geez.
"I'm okay Tomoyo, really, I promise." I closed my eyes and thought about how easily I could've just died. If I was already at a lower health whenever I fell it would've been that easy. I'd be gone for. The thought if it sent chills through my entire body. I felt them from my toes to my finger tips.
"So, which way do we need to go, then?"
"Oh, right. Uhm," I took a moment to remember everything I saw, "That way!" I pointed directly ahead of me. Tomoyo took my hand in both of hers and sprinted off with delight. The center of my chest hurt and my heart beat intensely.
We slowed down to a modest hike after about twenty minutes, having good luck with not encountering any unwanted monster battles or players thus far. We cleared out of the not-so-immense-after-all jungle in nearly no time at all, and ended up walking on patchy grasslands instead.
Another hour into our enduring walk, the grass has stopped appearing and now we're trekking on through a wasteland with only the occasional raisin of a tree. I could feel us inching closer to our destination every minute. Tomoyo began to drag her feet, more noticeably every so often.
"Kyou-kun... I can't do this anymore," she said whining just so pleasantly.
"Tomoyo-san we are almost there I promise, I promise, we are so close please just pick up your goddamned feet some more and you'll be able to rest all you can once we're there." My right eyebrow twitched and feet sweat, as did my palms, like they usually do.
"But I-I can't," she said as she literally collapsed to the dirt ground. I went from annoyed to worried as I hovered over her, attempting to play doctor.
"Tomoyo, do you need water, a drink? I have some ale; I mean I know you're not twenty yet but who gives a shit." She looked at me as if she was dying and I was offering her a deal on car insurance.
"Drinking is," she lifted her weak and limp hand to lamely slap my cheek, "bad for you, Kyou-kun." Drinking is bad for me? What's bad for me is being in a goddamned game for the rest of my life.
"Yeah," I sincerely agreed, "You're right. I really shouldn't drink, huh?" I discarded my ale, not like I'll need it. It's bad for me.
"Just let me sleep a while okay?" she 'asked' in a commanding tone.
"We're so close, like, maybe another twenty minutes and there'll be a bed waiting for you." She didn't respond. Just snored at me. I smacked myself in frustration then began to lift her underneath her arms.
"What are you doing?!" she maniacally asked me.
"Carrying you."
"No you're not."
"Okay."
I proceeded to lift her as I cuffed my left arm underneath her legs and wrapped my right arm around her back and neck, letting my hand hold her shoulder. She pouted, but I don't really care.
I began to walk like this, feeling exhausted myself, but I'm no hypocrite so I'll suck it up and keep walking until we get there.
The disfigured trees began to look familiar, so a spike in vitality was, for sure, called for.
I smiled as I managed to see off in the distance the homey eerie fog that I loved so much. Home. Home? I felt something wet on my sleeve, and looked down to see Tomoyo unrealistically fast asleep, drooling. Her mouth was wide open even though I could tell she was breathing through her nose.
"Tomoyo," I called, "We're here."
"You're so handsome, Kyou-kun," she said sheepishly.
"What?" She opened her eyes, surprised and confused, squirming around, managing to make me let go of her, consequently dropping her onto the dirt. Her breasts nearly fell out of her shirt thanks to her ungraceful spasms. She covered her chest with both her arms crossed, holding on to her shirt. Her cheeks, no, her entire face blistered red.
"P-pervert!"
"They're actually bigger than I thought..." While what I said was true, I only bothered saying it to get a reaction. My face looked puzzled, but in reality I was trying my hardest not to laugh. Her eyes swelled up and eyebrows frowned, her lips curved both up and downwards and, damn it she's gonna cry. "No, Tomoyo! I'm just teasing you," I said apologetically.
Her face dramatically shifted from distressed to pleased, along with a perky smile. "Good! If you're really sorry then you'll continue to carry me until we're there."
I frowned, but agreed. As I lifted her up once again, she happily pressed her cheek to my chest and her eyes smiled.
It didn't take much longer to arrive. I set Tomoyo down and it was obvious that she was uneasy. She basically hid behind me, grabbing at my fingers and clasping them tight in hers. I don't blame her, though. The entrance of Gray n' Waste wasn't occupied by a friendly face, or any face at all, for that matter. It was quiet, no, silent inside. I couldn't hear anything, and I know my hearing level isn't that low. My muscles tensed and I began to break into a cold sweat, my fingers shook with cowardice. "Tomoyo, stay out here."
"Please be safe Kyou-kun." I nodded.
She climbed a tree not far, sort of roosting in it, and I decided to myself that she'd be okay if I left her alone for a while. I went under the still 'temporary' flag, through the main doors, and shook my head in disbelief.
There was no one, the table was moved off to a corner, the chairs were thrown about. Any pelts that separated the personals were either gone, or on the floor.
Only, maybe half the torches were still lit, or there, and random weapons were stabbed in the wall, on the floor, or piercing beds. I ran to my personal, found my drawer still intact, and entered Horn's code. I felt the blood drain from my face. There was nothing. No weapons. No Col. No letter. No map.
I walked out of the ruined base. I couldn't think. All the men. All my friends, my family members. All of Gray n' Waste. Were they massacred? "I'll kill you," I promised Misturugi, "I'll hang you from a tree." Two gentle arms wrapped around my waist as a calming voice called my name.
"It's alright, Kyou-kun. It's okay."
I put my hands to my eyes. Don't cry, not again.
"Kyou?" I turned and shook my head. My face was ugly. "Kyou I'm here for you I swear." She stroked both my cheeks, wiping a few tears off them, and pressed her lips against mine.
I kissed her. I let my eyes close, I let myself be held. I let myself be hers. Please don't leave me like Horn did. Please don't leave me like my father did. She pressed her forehead against mine, and hugged me without letting go. We stood there, in a ruined desert, my old home, dirty, hungry, and exhausted. "I'll stay with you, Kyou-kun." And I doubted her. But I wanted it to be true so badly.
"Please don't die, Tomoyo."
She shook her head and kissed me again.