Disclaimer: Usually I write out this very specific disclaimer explaining exactly what it is I don't own but I find myself not really interested in doing so as it is very tedious. Suffice it to say I own nothing that was created by anyone else and I am making no money whatsoever from the writing of this FanFiction.
Warnings: Mild to moderate violence, character death, foul language, alternate universe (i.e. kiss HP canon goodbye), angst, drama, starts pre-Hogwarts Era, and who knows what else.
AN: This story is self-beta'd; so there may be occasional grammatical or spelling errors that crop up every now and then and for those I apologize in advance.
Chapter Twenty-Five: Reality
Friday, September 6, 2024 4:15 PM
Eighteen (soon to be nineteen) year old Kirigaya Kazuto sighed as he walked through the door into the silent house; the rest of his family had headed to Yokohama for the weekend as Kirigaya Suguha (his adopted sister and cousin) had a Kendo Tournament she was participating in. Kazuto had originally intended to go with the rest of the family but had to change his plans at the last minute due to an unavoidable class project that had been assigned just a couple of days earlier. Suguha had been disappointed but understanding and accepting instead of resentful (as she had been five years earlier when Kazuto always bowed out of watching her compete) because he'd really made an effort to be there for her over the past three years.
Kazuto was not the same person he'd been five years earlier. The two years he'd spent trapped inside the world of Sword Art Online had really changed Kazuto. As had his experiences with ALfheim Online, Gun Gale Online, and Project Alicization during the two years following the SAO debacle. There had been a lot of unpleasantness involved in all of that and he knew that few people could have gone through what he'd been through and come out unchanged. Even now he still struggled to deal with everything that happened from time to time.
Despite the bad experiences he'd had over the past five years, Kazuto treasured the memories he'd made during that time and the precious people he'd met and befriended. The trials he'd faced alongside those people had taught him how to live again. A few prime examples were Yuuki Asuna (his real life fiancée and in-game wife), Mills Andrew Gilbert or Gil as he preferred to be called (aka Agil), Shinozaki Rika (aka Lisbeth), Ayano Keiko (aka Silica), Tsuboi Ryoutarou (aka Klein), and Asada Shino (aka Sinon); all of whom bar Shino had been trapped within SAO with him.
There are others he knew and spoke to occasionally (including some that he'd met in ALO and GGO, like Shino) but those six were the ones he saw most frequently. That wasn't including those that had died over last the five years but it still hurt to think of think of those that had been lost; either through mistakes made in SAO (the members of the Black Cat of the Full Moon Guild), due to unfortunate circumstances (the terminally ill Konno Yuuki), or just plain missing (the ever stubborn Dragon Slayer James the Reckless – as Ryoutarou had dubbed him).
Toeing off his shoes, Kazuto padded further into the house to deposit his things in his room. He then sat down to check his e-mail and took several minutes to reply to those that needed his immediate attention before he headed downstairs to grab himself something for supper. On his way into the kitchen, he picked up the small pile of letters that someone (most likely Suguha or his adopted mother – who was also his biological aunt) had left on the hall table for him. He rifled through the half a dozen envelopes taking note of the senders' addresses only to pause in confusion when he came to a name he didn't recognize with an out of country address.
Hermione Granger
42 St. Peters Court
Canterbury, Kent CT1 2RX
United Kingdom
Frowning, Kazuto dropped the rest of his mail on the kitchen table and continued to inspect the one from the U.K. as he put on a kettle of water for tea. He continued searching his memory for any reason for someone outside of Japan to be writing to him but he kept drawing a blank. A niggling suspicion that he was overlooking something obvious kept him from tossing the letter out unopened but it was the gut feeling that the letter would cause him no end of trouble that prevented him from opening it without giving the matter due consideration first.
The screaming of the tea kettle made Kazuto jump as he'd completely forgotten about the water he'd been heating on the stove. Tucking the mysterious letter into his shirt pocket, the teen quickly set about making a cup of tea before raiding the refrigerator for leftovers to heat up. He then sat down at the table and began eating. After a couple of bites, he pulled the letter back out and dropped it on the table beside his plate where he stared at it through the rest of the meal. It wasn't until he finished eating, drank the last of his tea, and washed his dishes that he came to the conclusion that he would at least see why this Hermione Granger person was writing to him.
Pinching the top corner of the left side between his thumb and index finger, Kazuto ripped the envelope open and pulled out a sheet of thick, yellowed parchment that had been folded into thirds. The strangeness of receiving a letter written on actual parchment gave Kazuto pause for a moment before he pushed the oddness out of his mind and unfolded the letter. His eyebrows steadily made their way up his forehead as he read through the letter and he gave a start when he finally reached what he assumed was the crux of the matter towards the middle of the note. His hand crushed the letter just seconds later as he bolted towards his room without bothering to finish reading the rest of the letter as a sense of urgency filled him.
His fingers were flying across the keyboard before he even finished sitting down at his computer as he opened his e-mail and sent an urgent note to Gil, Ryoutarou, Asuna, and Rika asking them to make arrangements to meet him at Gil's restaurant slash pub (the Dicey Café) at closing time on Sunday. He would have liked to meet with them sooner but he had a class project to complete first, though he'd have a difficult time concentrating for the rest of the weekend as the words of the letter constantly burned through his mind.
Sunday, September 10, 2023 8:56 PM
Kazuto slipped in through the front entrance of the Dicey Café and glanced around at the small handful of customers that were finishing up their meals or nursing a final glass of alcohol in order to see if any of the others (aside from Gil, who owned the place) had yet arrived. A small smile flashed across his face when he saw his longtime girlfriend and fiancée waving to him from one of the newly installed booths near the back of the small café and he hurried across the room to join her. Asuna's beauty never failed to stir Kazuto's heart each time he saw her but it was her inner strength and purity of heart that had drawn him to her; she'd been one of players that had unflinchingly fought on the front lines during the SAO ordeal.
"Hey," Kazuto greeted softly as he sat down next to his fiancée.
"Hi," Asuna greeted in response. "When are you going to tell me what this is all about?"
"Soon, I promise. I don't want to have to repeat it more than once, so as soon as everyone is here I'll explain."
"Why didn't you just tell everyone in the e-mail you sent?"
"Because it's far more complicated than that and you have to see it to believe it."
"Still as mysterious as ever, eh, buddy?" Ryoutarou demanded as he slapped Kazuto on the back before he sat down across from the couple. "Evening, Asuna."
"Who's being mysterious?" Rika inquired as she pulled Ryoutarou out of her way so she could slide into the booth to sit next to Asuna. "Hello, Asuna. Kazuto."
"Hello to you too, Rika," Ryoutarou muttered with a pout over being left out of her greeting and being displaced from his seat. When she just stuck her tongue out at him in response, he dropped down onto the bench beside Kazuto with a soft, fond huff of exasperation.
"So what's with all of the cloak and dagger stuff?" Rika asked after a few minutes. "I mean, I like mysteries just as much as the next person but it's not like you to be so cryptic Kazuto-kun."
"I'll explain once Gil is finished closing up for the day," Kazuto replied as he reached his free hand into his pocket and fingered the now worn piece of parchment he'd been reading and rereading for the past two days whenever he wasn't working on his class project or scouring the internet for information. "It's already five after nine, so it shouldn't be too much longer."
Gil's wife, a no-nonsense woman with a kind heart named Mayumi, delivered four coffees to their table along with a platter of assorted deserts a heartbeat later and let them know that Gil would join them in about ten minutes. Kazuto thanked her as she walked away and settled back against the booth as he listened to the other three amicably catching up with one another as it had been a while since the last time they'd all gotten together. Normally, Kazuto would have joined in the conversation but his mind was firmly on another individual. The one friend that none of them had had any luck in tracking down during the past three years, though Gil had been the most diligent in searching since the man had been closest to individual in question.
"What's going on, Kazuto?" Gil demanded tiredly as he joined them several minutes later with his own cup of coffee; the man's usual friendliness worn down by a long day of work coupled with barely suppressed frustration and worry over the lack of information about their missing friend.
"A possible lead on what happened to James," Kazuto confessed as he brought out the letter he'd been sent and leaned forward to pass it to Gil; all four of the others starting a bit as mentioning their missing friend's name had become something of a taboo around the older black man at some point in the past year and a half of searching for the missing child. "I would have said something sooner or even brought you the letter sooner but I had a project I couldn't get out of for class and I wanted to research the person who sent it in case it was a hoax. I found nothing; not even a whisper. So, I don't know if the source can be trusted or not."
"Read it out loud," Ryoutarou half asked and half demanded as Gil simply stared at the worn and folded scrap of processed sheepskin in his hands while both ladies present leaned forward and stared at the letter as if they could discern its contents with just a glance.
Gil nodded shakily as he unfolded the letter and began reading aloud, his rich voice thick with emotion.
Dear Mr. Kirigaya,
I am certain that you are probably more than a little confused as to why a perfect
stranger from halfway around the world might be contacting you but I am hoping
that you might be able to help me. I have spent the past two and a half months
diligently researching the Sword Art Online incident from a few years back in order
to help a friend and your name was the only name, aside from the deceased
Akihiko Kayaba, I could find that was linked to Sword Art Online.
I realize that you might not wish to be reminded of your ordeal as one of the ten
thousand individuals that had been virtually kidnapped by Mr. Kayaba and for that
I will apologize in advance since it is not my intent to dredge up painful memories.
However, I am determined to help the friend I mentioned earlier find closure
because I fear it won't be much longer before he breaks under the weight of the
emotions he keeps bottled up inside. And I don't think anyone else can see just
how much he is suffering underneath the emotionless façade he wears in front
of others.
You are probably wondering what my friend's state of mind has to do with you or
your experiences in Sword Art Online and in truth the only thing I believe links the
two of you together is that you are both survivors of the Death Game; though I have
yet to confront my friend for confirmation of that. I have no idea whether or not you
personally met my friend during the ordeal or if you would know the names of the
five people he interacted with but it is my hope that if his name means nothing to
you that you can at least point me in the direction of someone that I could contact in
order to find one of those individuals.
My friend's name is Harry James Potter but he prefers to be addressed as James
and I once heard him refer to himself as Dragon Slayer James the Reckless. The
individuals that I am trying to help him find are Agil, Klein, Lisbeth, Asuna, and
Kirito. I don't know if any of those names are those players' real names but those
were the only names James knew those individuals by. He's also certain that both
Asuna and Kirito died in the final minutes of the game and fears that all three of
the others died as well.
I'd greatly appreciate any help you are willing to offer in tracking down any one of
those individuals, even if it is just a confirmation of their deaths. I am praying that
you can at least help me find the man known as Agil; someone James has repeatedly
referred to as a father figure during the three years that I've known him, as I think
he might be the only one that can help my friend. You see, due to certain things that
I am not allowed to speak of; James is convinced that he is still trapped within a
virtual reality.
It doesn't help that he has essentially become a prisoner at the boarding school we
both attend for reasons known only to the headmaster of the school. I suspect they
are worried about his apparent belief that life is a game and wish to protect him
from those that would harm him. I don't know why he isn't even allowed to leave
for the summer and winter holidays though and no one ever speaks of his family.
I know my story seems rather far fetched but I am prohibited from speaking about
a good portion of what is happening unless you already know about it. I am also
leery of giving you too many details about my friend because I have no idea if you
held any grudges against him for things that might have happened during the
Sword Art Online ordeal. I do hope that is not the case but since I know next to
nothing about you and even less about what James experienced in the game, I
can't be too careful.
Any help you are willing to provide would be greatly appreciated.
Sincerely,
Hermione Granger
"Do you think that letter might be the real deal? Where was she from, anyway?" Asuna asked as soon as Gil fell silent and lowered the letter. "And why would she contact you instead of contacting Kikuoka Seijirou at the SAO Case Victims Rescue Force? Or did she contact him as well?"
"The address on the envelope placed her in the United Kingdom; specifically in Kent, England," Kazuto answered as he pulled out the envelope, set it on the table, and tapped the return address. "I couldn't find any information on a Hermione Granger through the internet but that could be because she's most likely a minor given that she's supposedly attending a boarding school with James, who would be fourteen by now. I did, however, find a listing for a Doctor M. Granger and a Doctor A. Granger who run a private dental clinic in Dover, Kent; which is not that far from Canterbury."
"And I don't know if she contacted Seijirou-san or not yet; I sent him a couple of messages over the weekend but he hasn't gotten back to me yet. Hopefully, he will get back to me tomorrow. It's possible that she did contact him and that he hadn't been able to help because there are no records of James existing. Not even Yui could find any information about him within the Cardinal System but she had no trouble looking up information on the other nine thousand, nine hundred ninety-nine players."
"I also have two theories as to why Granger-chan had contacted me. First, is as she said, my name is one of the few that were ever publicly associated with SAO aside from the obituaries of the deceased and a handful of those who worked with Kayaba. And second, I suspect she might not want to involve an official due to her claim that there are things she can't talk about. The second one only really applies if she avoided contacting Seijirou-san though."
"She also might be worried about repercussions from whoever it is that is keeping James locked up at the school," Asuna added thoughtfully as she frowned into her cup. "After all, an official inquiry would potentially draw unwanted attention to the situation."
"The Ken no Sekai software never hit the world-wide market; so how could someone in England have gotten a hold of the software?" Ryoutarou demanded with a frown.
"Just because he is potentially in the United Kingdom now, doesn't mean that he was there five years ago," Rika pointed out logically as she tore apart the half eaten piece of anpan on her plate. "His family or the people that are reportedly keeping him locked up at school could have transferred him out of the country after he'd been caught up in the game or immediately after the game ended."
"Six weeks into the game, James was caught up in a system glitch that scrubbed his adult avatar after he'd managed to avoid being ousted as a kid on the first day of the game," Kazuto added as he took a drink of his coffee and grimaced at the bitter taste of the now cold drink. "There is a small chance that that glitch could have been caused by his body being transferred between Japan and the UK; if the proper precautions were taken at the time. I just can't think of any logical reason for him to have been moved out of the country at the time though."
"What do you think, Gil?" Asuna asked as she glanced over at the older black man who had not said a single word since he'd finished reading the letter.
"I don't know what to think. I have been hoping, praying, and searching for even the tiniest of clues as to James's whereabouts for almost three years now," Gil stated after a few minutes. "I can't tell you the number of times I cursed the stubborn gaki for not giving out even the smallest of hints as to who he lived with and where they lived. Aside from the fact that he lived with his aunt, uncle, and cousin and that they disliked him enough to verbally, mentally, and emotionally abuse him; he never gave me anything to work with. He was convinced that his body had been stuffed in a closet and left to die and yet he didn't care because as far as he was concerned, Aincrad was his home."
"He didn't just see Aincrad as home; he loved that world with his entire soul," Rika interjected sadly. "He found magic in every nook and cranny on every floor and sought to share it with all of us. Even when he was facing off against monsters like the Frost Dragon, he saw the beauty in the beast and in the fight and he often lamented over the fact that the designers of the monsters chose to force the players to destroy the wonders that had been created."
"That didn't stop him from facing off against those same wonders and shattering them at every opportunity," Ryoutarou snorted as he folded his arms and leaned back against the booth. "Little snot was pleased as punch when I dubbed him Dragon Slayer James the Reckless after I first met him."
"Why do you think he believes that Kazuto and I died at the end of the game?" Asuna wondered as she shivered over the memory of what had happened on the day Aincrad fell before she leaned into Kazuto's side.
"He'd witnessed the end of Kazuto's fight against Kayaba and saw both of you shatter. He was utterly devastated and screaming for you two to come back. Hell, all of us believed the two of you were dead right up until we saw Kazuto's picture in the paper," Ryoutarou replied with a frown as he shifted uncomfortably on his seat. "If James thinks he's trapped in another game on another server and he's locked up at some school for his own safety, then there's a good chance that the details of everything that happened afterwards have been kept from him as well."
"So how are we going to find out whether this girl is the real deal or not?" Rika asked as she reached forward to tap the letter that Gil hadn't yet released.
"I will send her a reply," Gil stated as he collected the envelope with the girl's address on it. "There are a number of questions that I can ask her that she'd only know the answers to if she has had contact with James and is his friend like she claims to be. Do you need this back, or can I keep it for now?"
"Go ahead and keep it," Kazuto replied in response to Gil's desire to hold onto the letter. "I wrote down the girl's name and address in case I needed it later; figuring you'd want to hold onto the original. You'll let us know when she responds back to your letter?"
"Yes."
"Good. Let me know if you need anything and if you decide to take a trip out to England to investigate in person, let me know because I'd like to go with you," Kazuto added as everyone began preparing to leave; their impromptu meeting finished now that a plan of action had been decided upon.
"Count me in as well; I owe the little gaki a good ribbing or two for allowing himself to be thrown off the edge of the platform like a rookie gamer during the fight against the Skull Reaper," Ryoutarou added with a slightly forced grin.
"Are we going to get Kikuoka Seijirou involved beyond determining whether or not Granger-san contacted him?" Asuna inquired as the group began migrating towards the door.
"It is probably best to wait and see how things go before we get him involved," Gil insisted as he tucked the worn parchment into the envelope and stuck it in his pocket. "Sending him in before we know what we're dealing with may see our only lead on James's whereabouts vanishing if the girl gets spooked due to his involvement."
Nothing more was said as the group split up to go their different ways; all five of them hoping and praying that they finally had a real chance of finding their missing friend.
It would take Gil two days to write and send a reply to Miss Granger's letter; the man taking care to word his questions carefully so as not to upset the girl or her parents as she was currently their only potential lead in finding James. He had also wanted to wait until Kazuto had heard back from Kikuoka Seijirou since the man's involvement would make a big difference in how they went about following up on the potential lead they had been given. Once the letter was finished and it had been determined that Miss Granger had not contacted the SAO Case Victims Rescue Force in her search for answers, the letter was sent on its way.
All that remained was to wait for the girl's next letter. Based upon the date stamp on the envelope, Gil knew it would take at least eight days for his letter to reach its destination and at least another eight days for her response to reach him with anywhere from two to five days in between to allow for her to write out her reply. That meant that it would be at least eighteen days before he could expect a response but most likely closer to a full four weeks before he got a reply.
His estimates would be mostly correct minus one little detail…
Hermione Granger's overworked parents weren't aware of the importance of the letter that arrived for their daughter on September nineteenth from a correspondent in Japan. So instead of forwarding the letter to her at school, they simply placed it on her desk like they normally did during the school year and there it would stay until about eight and a half months later when the school year finally ended as Hermione would stay at the castle during the winter and spring holidays as she had during her second year.
After three months with no reply, Gil, Kazuto, Asuna, Rika, and Ryoutarou would begin making plans to fly out to England in May (all of them had prior obligations they needed to deal with before they could take off halfway around the world). They planned to stay in the United kingdom for at least six months (with the hopes that that would be enough time to get the answers they needed in order to find James) with the knowledge that if the lead didn't pan out, they could always head home sooner.
And while the five of them had been through quite a bit together since they'd first been trapped in the world of Ken no Sekai, not a single one of them was prepared for the real life world of Magic and Madness that they would soon find themselves immersed in.
Translations: Japanese to English
Gaki – brat
Ken no Sekai – Sword Art Online
Game Terminology:
Aincrad – An Incarnating Radius (the name of the Castle that is SAO)
SAO – Sword Art Online
Notes:
Hermione's address – I picked a fairly random number and street for the Granger family to live on and placed them in Canterbury, Kent on a whim since her origins are not known through the books. There are several FanFics that place her down in Crawley but I didn't want to follow that trend. I think I got the format for the mailing address correct but it is entirely possible that I am wrong; which I'm not too worried about since the address is only important for this story. Any resemblance to an actual address is pure coincidence.
Hermione's Letter – Some of you may have noticed that I made Hermione sound very mature in her letter and that is because at the time she wrote the letter she was almost fifteen years old, she has on many occasions demonstrated that she is very mature for her age, and she took her time writing that letter because she needed Kazuto to take her request seriously and not dismiss it as a cruel or childish prank.
AN: And now you have a vague idea of what everyone else from SAO has been doing while Harry was lost in MaM and that they've been diligently searching for the missing James. I know there were a few people hoping that James would be able to take part in the ALO, GGO, or Project Alicization but at the time I first wrote this out, I hadn't really known all that much about GGO and Alicization since I've been following the anime rather than the light novels. That's also the reason why I didn't go into detail of what had happened during those arcs.
As far as this story goes, the events that took place in ALO, GGO, and the Underworld (Project Alicization) all followed canon bar the fact that they've been searching for James. The reasons why no trace of James had been found (both in the system by Yui and in reality by Kikuoka Seijirou) will be explained within the story in later chapters. I'm sure most of you are kind of sick of hearing me say that but that's just the way this story's plot unfolded as I wrote the story.
I know there were a couple people that had hoped I'd have a magical solution to saving Yuuki but I hadn't seen the Mother's Rosario arc until long after this had been written out. And I am not ashamed to say I bawled my eyes out after I did see it. Her story was so touching and heartbreaking. *sniffles* ~ Jenn
10-10-15: Minor edits made to chapter to fix spelling/grammar mistakes and removed unnecessary author's notes.