Hello all, welcome back :)
So here it is. I promised it a few chapters back and now I'm finally doing it. The nice, long chapter I promised is here.
When I wrote the last fight scene, I purposefully didn't write to the best of my ability in order to not out-do myself so early on. But after re-reading this one, I think I forgot to do that here.
I won't say any more for now, just read and enjoy this long chapter for once :)
"ONE PERCENT!?" Leafa shouted in annoyance. "We're going to be here forever,"
"Nonsense. The faster we kill these things, the higher the chances of one spawning are," Asuna said with determination "Tell you what, let's have a competition. The first person to spot a flower Nepenthes gets to spend the night alone with Kirito," She was mostly doing this to egg Leafa on but a small part of her was also teasing her husbands younger cousin. She couldn't help it. Plus, she knew it was an easy way to spark a friendly rivalry with anyone in their group really.
"Oh, you're on now," Leafa spoke with true commitment now. What had previously been a small flame in her eyes was now pretty much an enormous bonfire as she totally ignored Asuna's countdown and darted towards the nearest Nepenthes. Asuna expected a reaction, but not one of this caliber. Realizing that she might actually lose at this rate, she sprung into action and made a beeline for a different Nepenthes that was just slightly farther away.
"Don't think I'm going to go easy on you," Asuna belted in an unintentional battle-cry. Even though Leafa had gotten the jump on her, she wasn't the type to give up after a measly head-start.
She arrived at her enemy at lightning speed. Clearly, her agility hadn't lost its touch in the two years she had been away. The Nepenthes attempted to swing at her from the side with its vines but with her speed, it may as well have been moving in slow motion.
When she was close enough, the tip of her trusty rapier, Lambent Light, shone a brilliant green and she activated one of her old multi-attack sword skills. Before the Nepenthes even knew what was happening, Asuna violently stabbed it three times in succession before momentarily jumping backward, then in blink of an eye, she rushed forward again and in an exquisite explosion of green particles from her sword, she thrust her sword into the Nepenthes for a fourth attack, but this time, the damage was so great, the Nepenthes was thrown backward at speed and slammed against a nearby tree trunk, prompting it to explode shortly after in the usual crystallized fashion. This was the power of one of her many sword skills, Severed Grace.
After the momentary delay of movement that came with using a sword skill, she looked back and saw that Leafa was just finishing off her own enemy. However, neither of them had time for words as a few more had spawned nearby. The notion that both of them leaped into battle as soon as they physically could was a clear sign that neither of them was going to give up.
Due to the areas that the newly spawned Nepenthes were, Leafa soon found herself split up with Asuna, though she could still hear her fighting somewhere in the thick of the forest.
"I won't give up," She said to herself as if to further solidify her determination. With this, she charged towards the first of the two enemies before her. Unfortunately, neither had run into a flower Nepenthes yet, but she was quite okay with this as long as she was the first to eventually find it. She very rarely got to spend some proper one on one time with her beloved cousin, so this was a perfect opportunity to get even closer to him.
Deep down in her heart, she knew that the one he truly loved above all else was Asuna, and she had already accepted that she would never reach a level of intimacy like that. But as much as she had honestly tried many times by now, she just couldn't bury those feelings of love, of a relationship just a little more than family. So to herself, she had made a vow that she would at the very least, have these feelings of hers acknowledged in some way.
As she remade the vows she had originally put in place roughly two years ago, the Nepenthes swung at her with it's left vine. She blocked the attack by parrying it with her sword at a vertical angle and using the momentum of the knockback to spin around to the right and use one of the strongest sword skills she had learned through her level ups; Horizontal Cresent. The entirety of her iron sword shone yellow and she sliced at the stomach of the beast before her. The yellow trail of light that came from the shining sword formed a majestic crescent moon before exploding outwards and almost cutting the Nepenthes clean in half. The Nepenthes once again toppled over and disappeared in the usual death animation.
"Wow, Asuna was right. These things aren't that strong at all," she said to herself before focusing her attention on the next enemy once the delay of movement had worn off.
It was here when she noticed that there was a third Nepenthes behind the one she was currently looking at that had a peculiar red ball on its head. Seen as flowers didn't tend to look like balls, she came to the conclusion that this was the fruit Asuna had talked about. Leafa made sure to remember not to damage it before refocusing her attention to the enemy in front of her. "One enemy at a time," she thought to herself before beginning her assault. As she charged, the Nepenthes started to prepare a poison projectile attack much like the first one she had fought.
"Another poison, just got to remember to wait for the right moment an-" She was abruptly stopped by the Nepenthes suddenly shooting the poison ball at her with much higher speed and accuracy than the first one, not to mention firing it a lot quicker. Leafa barely snapped out of her surprise in time and had to take a reckless dive to the side to avoid being hit. It was then when she noticed something odd about this Nepenthes as well as the one with the fruit on it.
Their skin was slightly more purple than the first three she had fought. Did Asuna forget to tell her something? It didn't matter, it was too late for that anyway. All she could do was assume that these purple Nepenthes were slightly stronger and faster than the previous ones she had just fought and fight accordingly. After she regained her footing and got back into her fight stance. She approached the purple Nepenthes will a bit more caution. Instead of running towards it, she walked slowly and waited for it to make the first move.
Just then, the purple Nepenthes roared and sent it's right vine straight toward her. If she didn't jump out of the way, she would've been pierced right through the stomach, but seen as it moved too fast for her to react like that, she just stood her ground and attempted to deflect it with her sword.
The impact made a wave of sparks fly off the sword and briefly light up the area. Leafa briefly celebrated her success but was immediately assaulted by the other vine coming from above, threatening to crush her. Luckily this time, she was able to barely sidestep the slam but the dust and rocks that flew from the point of impact made her unable to see and even did a speck of damage to her HP bar.
During her momentary blindness, the purple Nepenthes wrapped the vine she had just avoided around her ankle and pulled her up into the sky upside down. Had anyone else been there, she probably would've gotten embarrassed and tried to cover up her private area. But in the heat of the moment with no one to help her, she ignored it completely and instead focused on what the enemy was planning on doing next.
Suddenly, she got the terrifying idea that it was going to slam her onto the ground much like the attack it had just previously tried to hit her with and as if reading her thoughts, the purple Nepenthes started to wave her around as if readying the attack. Leafa, however, remained as calm as she could and waited for the right moment before cutting the vine at her feet, causing her to fall directly towards the head of the Nepenthes.
With this in mind, she dived sword first and impaled her sword as far into the enemies head as she could until only the hilt was visible. And she wasn't done there. To make sure that she killed the enemy, she made herself fall off the head of the Nepenthes while still holding onto the hilt of her sword. The momentum of her fall caused the sword to follow her down and in doing so, she sliced the purple Nepenthes all the way from its head down to its roots, meaning that she once again had sliced it cleanly in half. Except this time it was vertically, not horizontally.
The left half of the Nepenthes fell to the left and the right half, to the right. The body pieces had barely hit the ground before they simultaneously exploded in a pile of crystals.
"Now for the fruit one," She once again said aloud to herself. With the new found, self-gathered information of these unusual purple Nepenthes, she would no doubt approach this one with even more carefulness. If that fruit atop its head was damaged and its odor was spread, there was a high chance she would legitimately die and lose everything she had worked so hard to get.
"As long as I just attack the abdomen and below, I shouldn't have a problem," She thought to herself as she decided on the best course of action. However, her thoughts were interrupted by another roar coming from the fruit Nepenthes as it, surprisingly, charged towards her. The surprise was a welcome one however as Leafa had more than enough experience to know that the person doing the charging was at the disadvantage. Though, that was mostly for fighting against real people. Nevertheless, she prepared herself as the fruit Nepenthes charged towards her.
Once it was within five meters, it launched both of its vines towards her at the same. However, remembering that the previous purple Nepenthes' thrusting attack was quite low to the ground, she leaped over the vines which just barely missed her feet and upon landing, she got as low as could and sliced the Nepenthes roots. Her original plan was to hit it at least twice but she only got one in before it leaped backward just enough for her to miss. With almost no delay, the Nepenthes summoned some poison in its mouth and shot it at her. She rolled to the right with ease and avoided it, but then realized that this was just a distraction. And unfortunately, her realization came too late.
The Nepenthes speedily brought it's right vine back and with no time to avoid the attack, Leafa braced herself as the pointed leaf on the vine smacked her in the back and sent her flying away. The lightning-fast impact of the vine alone lowered her HP bar by 45% and when she landed hard on her back and ragdolled along the ground, a further 5% was knocked away. If blood existed in this world, she would've just coughed up a fair amount as a result.
Nevertheless, she refused to give in and stood up with what felt like a broken spine and healed herself with a potion, bringing her health bar back up to 80%. Seeing this, the fruit Nepenthes launched both of its vines at her again but this time, she was prepared. As the vines were within a meter of her, she sidestepped to the right using the speed of a sword skill she had activated, Falling Edge and with a shining orange sword, she chopped the vines in half.
The Nepenthes cried out in pain and brought the vines back to it, but not before Leafa had started a charge towards the enemy with a fiery soul that demanded it dead. Before the fruit Nepenthes could start another attack, Leafa summoned the last of her three sword skills she had earned through her level ups and since this was the finishing blow, she shouted the name as if it would help make it stronger.
"LINEAL!" As she shouted the name, which was the long sword version of the rapier sword skill Linear, her iron sword shone a blinding silvery-white color and she thrust it right into the fruit Nepenthes' stomach. The speed of the thrust left a comet-like tail trailing the sword as it exploded upon impact and sent the fruit holding purple Nepenthes flying backward head first and into the base of a tree.
Leafa was just about to celebrate her victory before realizing her big mistake. Since the red fruit was on top on its head, it was the first thing to make contact with the tree and even though the Nepenthes disappeared shortly after, it still had just enough time for the fruit to burst open and send a red colored mist in all different directions.
It barely took any time at all for the mist to spread out farther than Leafa could see and as such, she desperately tried to think of an escape from the area. Unfortunately for her though, every second she spent not moving, more and more normal Little Nepenthes were either spawning or quickly making it's way to her location from elsewhere. It had only been mere seconds since the red odor was dispersed but even though she thought of a plan that quickly, she quickly realized that she was surrounded from every possible direction.
With absolutely no escape, Leafa could see nothing but death in her very near future. There were already at least fifty of these things surrounding her and the number only grew. Just as she was about to lose all hope, the faint color of red caught her eye and much to her joyous relief, a Little Nepenthes with a red flower atop its head had finally made itself known.
There was no way she would be able to get it, her quest was at its end. But there was one other person who could and so, with nowhere else to turn and no escape, she did the only thing left that she could. Shout at the top of her lungs.
"ASUNAAAAAAA! I FOUND A FLOWER ENEMY!" If she had shouted any louder, her virtual vocal cords would've probably burst but even so, she shouted it one more time just in case. After a brief stalemate, where all that could be heard was the echo of her voice, all of the Nepenthes sprang into action at once.
Leafa stood tall and readied her stance as if to say 'Bring it on, if I'm going down, I'm going down fighting'. If she was seriously honest, ever since the fighting started, she had realized that she wasn't necessarily acting like her normal self. It was as if some sort of much more committed and determined girl had possessed her body and assisted her. She couldn't tell if it was her longing to be with her cousin or just some supernatural phenomena.
Either way, she was still standing strong and would do so until her dying breath. With this, the first Nepenthes to attack launched their vines in her direction. She chopped the first one in half and parried the second one, sending her into knockback.
But like before, she used the momentum to swing around and chop another in half. A fourth one came directly at her and, although she blocked it, she was unable to carry the momentum and was pushed backward. She quickly noticed a poisonous projectile coming her way and rolled out of the way just in time. Her recovery was a second too late as another vine swung at her from the side and knocked her off balance.
Even so, she was just in time to block a sixth vine from her left side, but as a result of being off balance even before this one, her unprepared stance allowed the sword to be knocked from her hand. Sensing her end was near, she desperately reacher for her sword but just before she could grab it, she was attacked by a vine from above. She didn't do much to dodge it but it still missed her and instead got her with the splash damage.
Then, before she could recover her sight, she was violently knocked from the side by a speeding vine. The impact sent her barreling into the base of a tree and she hit it with a dangerously loud thud. The impact hurt her so much that she almost completely lost feeling in her body, and that wasn't even all. As if to add insult to injury, a final vine came speeding towards her and, with one last breath, the pointed leaf impaled her right in between her two breasts and stabbed right through her until it penetrated right through to the other side of the tree.
Had the previous impact of hitting the tree not made her lose feeling in her body, she probably would've been screaming from the pain. But all she did was lifelessly twitch as life started to leave her eyes. The Nepenthes eventually pulled it's vine back out of her and she fell face first onto the ground. As her entire body went numb and her sight went blurry, she thought she noticed some sort of bright yellow light come from behind the wave of Little Nepenthes. Then, as her vision went completely dark and her hearing dissipated, she heard someone shout out what seemed to be the name of a sword skill.
"MOTHER'S ROSARIO!" And just as soon as she had heard those words, everything went black.
Mother's Rosario, a skill made by a terminally ill girl called Yuuki Konno in a game called ALfheim Online, inherited by Asuna Yuuki, and then remade in Sword Art Online just a few days ago by the same Asuna using the Original Sword Skill system (OSS), was an 11-hit combo made to completely annihilate an enemy.
That is exactly what Asuna had done. After hearing an echo of a cry for help, she sprinted in the direction of the distress call and found a flood of Tempered Little Nepenthes surrounding what she assumed was her friend. As soon as she had spotted the Nepenthes with the flower atop its head, she unleashed this move upon it and utterly destroyed it. After quickly confirming that she had obtained the Little Nepenthes's Ovule, she used lightning quick reflexes to maneuver her way inside the circle of enemies to find her friend laying lifelessly on the ground.
If she was quick enough, she could probably save her by taking her to the Chamber of Resurrection in the Town of Beginnings and getting her healed there instead of forcing her to respawn and lose everything she had gained since starting this mission inside SAO. But if she wanted to get Leafa out of there, she needed to create an opening in the circle of enemies. So she turned to face the hundreds of Nepenthes around her, a picturesque moment of one versus a hundred and spoke as if her friend was still conscious.
"Don't worry Leafa," she promised as her sword glowed a brilliant blue "I will save you," The distance to the nearest Nepenthes from her position was about twenty meters. She wasn't completely sure if her attack would power up in time but she had to try.
Currently, Leafa's avatar was in an unconscious state. This is something that happens when your avatar reaches 1% or less in their HP bar but doesn't die and they have around ten minutes to be healed by either a Vitality Potion or being brought to a place in the Town of Beginnings called the Chamber of Resurrection. The Chamber of Resurrection was the place where people respawned but also acted as a healing zone.
For normal walking speeds, the Town of Beginnings was about fifteen minutes away and the small countdown timer icon floating above Leafa's body was already reading nine minutes and twenty seconds left. After careful consideration, Asuna decided on the best course of action. Using lightning quick reflexes, she opened her menu, grabbed a smoke bomb and used it on herself. Enveloping both her and Leafa in a big could of fog. The reason for this was so that the monsters surrounding her couldn't see where she was and as a result, wouldn't attack. The smoke only lasted for thirty seconds so Asuna moved very quickly.
Right after the smoke cloud appeared, she kneeled down to Leafa's body and manipulated her hand to open her menu. Next, she manipulated Leafa's finger to take a teleport crystal out of her inventory that would send her the main teleport gate in the Town of Beginnings and pressed her finger on it to activate it. Seconds later, Leafa's body disappeared in a flash of light, leaving Asuna by her lonesome.
This, of course, was what she wanted. Her plan was simple, teleport Leafa back to the Town of Beginnings then run there as fast as she could manage and hopefully arrive before the timer ran out. There was also the hope that someone would see Leafa's body after she was teleported and take her to the Chamber of Resurrection themselves to avoid Asuna having to rush but she didn't hold out hope for that. She had to treat this as a worst case scenario deal.
So after Leafa had teleported away, Asuna once again focused her imagination on her attack and her sword's bright blue light returned. Considering the specific attack she was using, she started sprinting towards a certain Nepenthes. The faster her sprint, the brighter blue her sword became. Eventually, the sword skill assist system kicked into gear and started making her go even faster. The twenty-meter distance was closed in less than two seconds as her rapier was now a blinding blue flash.
When she reached the Nepenthes she was aiming for, she thrust her sword towards it and impaled the beast, as well as seven other beasts behind it. The thrust of her sword not only killed seven Tempered Little Nepenthes in the blink of an eye, but she also crossed a total distance of eighty meters in less than three seconds. In fact, she moved so quickly that the seven Nepenthes she killed hadn't been moved at all from the attack, they just had big human-shaped holes in them. Asuna's had gone so fast, she had just plowed straight through their bodies before the game itself even knew what had happened.
And yet, this was merely a glimpse of the power of one of her strongest sword skills, Flashing Penetrator. The only drawback? The post-motion delay of movement was unbearably long. Once she could finally move again, she completely ignored the rest of the Nepenthes made a speedy beeline for the Town of Beginnings. If she ran as fast as she could, she could probably half the time it would take to get there. Even so, eight minutes was still cutting it dangerously close.
Desperately hoping she would make it in time, she barreled through the grassy landscape of the first floor, narrowly avoiding bushes, trees, rocks and even leaping over a river to shave off precious seconds of her travel time.
"Don't slow down Asuna, you absolutely have to make it!" She constantly repeated to herself in her thoughts.
After five or so minutes, she could feel her virtual stamina reaching its limit, but upon seeing the Town of Beginnings come into view, she ignored her pain and inched out even a little more strength. If her stamina gave out before reaching Leafa, then she would be forced to use the Flashing Penetrator skill again just to cover the distance left. However, she successfully made it into the town without the use of her sword skills and eased up by just a tiny bit as there was a couple of ninety degree turns involved in reaching the teleport gate from the entrance she had entered in.
The maze-like alleyways of the Town of Beginnings were sure to confuse the brains out of the new players, but from the way Asuna zipped through the town at a blistering pace showed just how experienced she was. No one knew the Town of Beginnings better than her. Eventually, Asuna rounded the last corner and saw the big circular teleport gate which also indicated the center of the town. Praying that she had made it in time, she bolted up the small flight of steps, hoping to god that Leafa was there.
But there was no body to be found.
A great feeling of worry washed over Asuna. Had she really been too late? Had all of Leafa's work been for naught solely because of her own incompetence? Asuna started to curse herself repeatedly before she remembered that there was still a chance. A chance that some passing stranger saw her unconscious body and either healed her or taken her to the Chamber of Resurrection.
Pleading that this was the case, Asuna ran—not nearly as fast as before but still at pace—towards the Chamber of Resurrection. It was pretty close by from the teleport gate, a mere four minutes at walking speed, but Asuna really didn't want to take any chances just in case.
As she reached the bottom of the stairs that led up to the chamber, she called out her friend's name in hopes that she could relieve herself of this stress but she got no reply. So she climbed the few flights of stairs that led to the Chamber of Resurrection, which rested on top of a small hill hence the stairs, and as she reached the top, she caught sight of the long blonde girl with her hair in a ponytail. And better yet, she seemed to still have all her stats and equipment. Asuna was so relieved she almost cried as she ran up to her. "Leafa!" she called out, causing the blonde to turn around suddenly.
"Asuna! You're okay," She shouted back before they convened just outside the chamber.
"Forget about me, what about you? How did you get revived?" Asuna asked with intense curiosity.
"Toran did it," Leafa replied before someone to their left called out to them.
"Yo, Asuna, what's up?" the voice said. Asuna jerked her head in its direction and saw Toran walking towards them.
"Apparently, Toran saw me lying at the teleport gate and brought me here. If it weren't for him, I'd probably be dead by now," Leafa explained as Toran reached their position.
"I was actually just about to walk into the gate to teleport to Urbus and all of a sudden, she just appeared right in front of me. Talk about convenient timing," Toran said, to which Asuna couldn't agree more. She almost wanted to wrap him in a hug for doing that but decided that they probably didn't know each other well enough to be that friendly. So instead she just deeply thanked him for saving her.
"Anyway, what is this place? It looks weird but has such a nice aroma to it," Leafa asked as she returned to inspecting the odd building. Being the veteran that she was, Asuna opened her mouth to reply but, to her surprise, Toran spoke first.
"This is called the Chamber of Resurrection. It's a building that was in the SAO beta but removed by Kayaba in the actual version due to the whole perma-death thing," Both Leafa and Asuna listened closely to his exposition, both for two different reasons. "The entirety of it's inside is filled with vitality mist and although the mist itself is invisible to the naked eye, it's definitely there. It's why you were able to regenerate as soon as I brought you in," After he finished talking, Asuna had too many questions to count but kept them quiet for now as Leafa became enthralled by the monument and went back in while Toran followed her to explain the inside.
The building itself was rectangular. It had three smooth concrete walls and roof filled with engravings of all different kinds. The reason it didn't have the fourth wall was that that was actually the entrance. Seen as it was a regenerative zone as well as a respawn zone for those that DID die, the entire wall was gone in favor of a massive entrance so that it's super easy to get in and out of.
"There are so many engravings on the walls, do you know what any of them say?" Leafa asked excitedly as her eyes beamed around the interior of the chamber.
"All the small text and random decals are just kind of there for show, but the bigger text up top that lines across the entire building says something," Toran explained as he pointed out the ancient text near the roof of the building that took up the entirety of the inside from one side to the other. "It's in High Elvish so I can't actually read it myself, but I have been told what it says from someone who can," As he said this, Leafa made a quick mental note that High Elvish must be different to normal Elvish as she was one of the best Elvish speakers in ALO. "Apparently, it says this; Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand," Leafa took a moment to take in the surreal words that Toran had said. The more she thought about them, the more it made her feel so calm and happy. Similar to the times when she had snuck on to the roof of her real-life home and just gazed at the shining stars of the universe.
"Any idea why it says that?" She asked Toran, who barely gave it a moment of thought before giving his honest answer.
"I'm not sure exactly why, but deep down, I like to think that Kayaba wasn't as bad as people think. Perhaps he was just too intelligent and creative for the modern world," Toran looked downwards towards the ground as he continued "He's kind of like Albert Einstein to me, born and died too early," He stopped there and just gazed at the words on the wall, doing all he could to not let his inner conflict show.
"Hey, by the way," Leafa said suddenly causing Toran to look at her. She didn't look back and instead smiled gratefully while still looking at the elvish text. "Thanks for saving me, I really owe you one,"
"Don't thank me, Asuna was the one who saved you. All I did was bring you here," He claimed, not wanting to take credit for Asuna's hard work.
"I know, but I appreciate your help," Leafa said as she finally looked back at him. "I really do,"
"Well then," Toran said awkwardly as he looked away to hide his blushes "You're welcome," Leafa couldn't help but giggle at his reaction. After a while, Leafa returned to Asuna and they waved goodbye to Toran before returning to Horunka and completing their quest.
Thus, the Secret Medicine of the Forest arc closes. I hope you enjoyed it and don't be afraid to tell me what you think or give me some advice for the next one.
Now then, on to some PSA's
I have FINALLY made more progress in the story. Granted it's not a huge amount, but I think it's a good sign that I was actually able to put together a few more pages after all this time.
Also, I know you're all probably pretty happy with the nice, long chapter. But doing this also means that I'm going to take a small break. What I mean by this, is that after this chapter, I'm going to try and focus solely on story progression rather than uploading since I finally got some more pages done. I feel if I can devote every second of my time to the story's current progression, then I can go back to sitting back and relaxing while posting whenever I want. Do Not fear though, I won't be gone longer than a month, you have my word.
So save the date, if I haven't uploaded again by the 8th of May, you all have permission to beat me with a chair of your choosing.
Another thing, regarding that part where Toran explained what the High Elvish on the Chamber of Resurrection said, I took that quote from a book called "The Warlock" by Michael Scott (give it a read, I recommend it)
Otherwise, I have nothing more to report. To all my readers, and especially the ones who have followed/favorited/reviewed, thank you so much for the support and I will see you all on the other side. Adios!
pls excuse all grammar mistakes, proof-reading ain't my strong suit. (P.S I apologize if this chapter seemed a bit wall-of-texty, didn't have much time to edit it)