It's a slippery slope to ruin :)
your heart is full of broken dreams, just a fading memory; everything's gone, but the pain carries on - Not Alone (Red)
o0o0o
"...Natsuki. Are you even hearing me?"
Karma jumps when Megu snaps her fingers in front of her face, catching her drink just in time before it spilled all over her.
"Jeez, could you not?" she huffs, a bit more sharply than she intended to. "Of course I hear you. You were talking about your roommate again, how she likes a different guy in her friend group now?"
Megu doesn't look impressed. "So you heard me, but you're obviously not listening," she snipes, poking Karma's forehead.
She bats her hand away, struggling to contain a scowl. "Same thing."
Megu slurps at her tea. "Did something happen? You seem on edge these days."
Karma lifts her coffee to her mouth. She's always on edge. If Megu noticed, she must really be slipping.
"I'm fine. Just haven't been sleeping that well," she says dismissively.
That much is true, at least, even from before Kotori reappeared. She hasn't gotten a single night's worth of decent sleep since waking up from Aincrad. Between purposefully staying up late with coffee (which isn't exactly smart, but she can never bring herself to care in those moments), waking up in the middle of the night from the things she sees in her sleep, or lately being unable to fall asleep because she's irrationally worried she'll never wake up in the morning, she hasn't exactly been well-rested. Still, she's used to functioning on little sleep anyways, so she's still keeping up with her job well enough.
She thinks the dreams might be the worst. Despite two years of them, she never quite got used to it. After all, she's used to staying up late with coffee, and she's certainly used to going to sleep knowing people are out to get her.
But her subconscious always, always finds ways to mix it up on her, just when she wakes up thinking she's seen it all—murdering people, getting murdered by people who she's murdered, watching people she cares about die horrifically.
And more than all the others, she hates the newest one that has come to call. There's no blood, no screaming, no steel except in blank dry eyes and a crumbling castle; again and again, she stands in the middle of the sky and watches two lives turn to dust before her eyes in a way that hurts infinitely more than the rest.
"Maybe the people at the rehab center can help you. Get you some sleep pills or something."
Karma just rolls her eyes and changes the subject. No. She has to be perfect for them. Can't show any signs of slipping. None. And if her mind doesn't want to sleep, she won't make her body do it. She doesn't need them fighting, not at a time like this; she needs all the allies she can get.
A time like this…
When is it going to be over? Everyone's going back to normal, slowly, but they're moving forward, and she's just...stuck here.
She knows many people are still grieving for ones they left behind in the game, both people who were SAO players and people who weren't. The ones who were mourned those they couldn't protect. The ones who weren't knew now, with a chilling finality, that this wasn't a trick, a two year long hoax. SAO is over, and the family they lost is never coming back.
For two years, she's been wondering, how many are mourning the lives she took?
Everything is real, and it hurts.
But she's pretty sure no one but her wants to actually go back. Because that's insane, right? That's stupid. She has her friends and her family back, she even has her beloved guild members to lean on, except it's pointless without the trust in other people she can't reclaim.
Asuna still isn't awake, and she misses her little sister. She thought it would be one of the ironclad certainties of coming back to this place, that she would have Asuna, who would surely understand—not fully, but better than anyone else could.
(Really, though, she should know better than to expect certainties to last.)
Megu is great. Megu has barely changed at all from when SAO began, and that's comforting in its own way, and jarring in another. Karma has changed so much that Megu being just about the exact same as she was before is stability; at the same time, she just doesn't understand anything.
Megu laughs at the idea that Karma could've been on the front lines, and that's understandable, because Karma would've laughed too before SAO. Megu thinks Karma must be happy to be out of that game—again, understandable; most people are. Megu wants Karma to move forward and start thinking about the future, but she just can't.
Megu thinks she still knows Karma, but she doesn't; she still knows Akane Natsuki, and that's just not who Karma is anymore. And it hurts, not having someone who can read her like an open book and who will keep her secrets, who will take her tears and her shattered glass shards of pain and keep them somewhere safe.
It hurts, not being able to think to herself, If I can get through this, if I can make it home to him, then everything will be okay.
SAO was a world painted in shades of gray (fitting for a steel castle), full of monsters, and she loved the worst one of them all. She was blissfully ignorant, and it was wonderful.
I want to go home.
o0o0o
"-guy who got into the fight with the group chat, remember him?"
"Mmm."
"So he's back now, apparently, and I don't even know what the heck is-"
Karma cracks her neck loudly, yawning. The stars are barely visible tonight. "Don't look now, but someone's following us—I said, don't look."
Megu hurriedly stays facing forward at Karma's biting tone. All the flippant, gossipy humor is gone from her voice, now hushed. "What do you-"
"It's fine. Just a would-be mugger." From the quick glimpses she caught, whoever it is is too bulky and tall to be Kotori or Haruhi. They don't tend to get much nighttime crime around these parts, but it happens.
"We're still fifteen minutes from home," Megu hisses, her grip on her purse so tight that Karma can hear the material creaking from here. "I'll call-"
"No. If you call the police, he'll be long gone by the time they get here."
"Well, that's the point, idiot!" Megu already has her phone out of her bag when Karma clamps her hand over her wrist tightly. "Ow! Wh-what are you doing?!"
"I've got enough people already breathing down my neck; I don't need the police doing it too," she says, her tone perfectly conversational. They'll just think she's seeing things and being paranoid—which she is, but that's not the point. "Come on. We'll take a shortcut home."
Ignoring Megu's increasingly high-pitched protests, Karma leads the way down a dimly lit side street, sidestepping some trash bags at a leisurely pace; she doesn't drag Megu with her, but the other girl follows anyway, too scared to be left alone, and squeaks like a mouse when the light pops and flickers overhead. Adrenaline begins to thrum in her veins again, and she breathes in deep, her pulse starting to drown out Megu's voice (and the one in her head) telling her how bad of an idea this is.
When she breathes out, it's like all of her insecurities go with it.
"I'm telling you, this is just looking to get in trouble!" Megu hisses, working herself up in a panic. "I don't know what you think you're doing, but-"
Karma wheels around, glaring in the direction they came from. "Yeah, well, as much fun as listening to your roommate's drama is, it's not my cup of tea. Or coffee."
Shadows stretch long as the man who's been following them steps into view, and Megu sucks in a sharp, terrified breath. He does cut an intimidating figure, but all that matters is that he doesn't look light on his feet.
Though the way he handles that knife is interesting. "You were in SAO."
His lip curls. "So I was," he rasps; she can smell cigarettes on him from here. "And you'd better believe I still know how to use this."
He twirls his knife briefly, and Megu lets out a frightened bleat; meanwhile, Karma listens carefully for footsteps from their back. The adrenaline sharpens all of her senses and fine tunes them, drowning out anything unnecessary. With a sweep of her gaze, she takes in their surroundings; there's a trash can next to her with a lid she can use as a shield, a dumpster for a possible height advantage, a broken sake bottle that she can easily pick up without worrying about the glass cutting her gloved fingers-
"Megu, watch our backs," she orders brusquely. "Just in case he's got friends."
She twitches in irritation when Megu protests, vocally. Her guildmates would've never; they would've trusted her-
"Natsuki, shut up and just give him what he wants!" Megu snaps, her voice cracking with fear; she can hear her unzipping her purse already.
But then again, she admits to herself, she would've never gone looking for a fight with her guildmates in tow when they trusted her to keep them safe. After all, Megu has no such trust in her.
"He won't have a gun," she says dismissively. "They're restricted enough as it is, and no way would anyone let a former SAO player have one. Tell me-" She directs this at their aggressor. "-were you in an orange guild? Perhaps Laughing Coffin?"
His bloodshot eyes widen, his knife lowering ever so slightly; if Karma wanted to, she'd have made her move at that instant.
"You were in the game too, weren't you?" he asks hoarsely.
"Yup. Worked for the clearers."
He flinches at that, mouth working furiously. "You're bluffing," he snaps, his grip on his weapon far too tight. "Even if you were, I bet you were just a crafter or something. Now listen to your friend and-"
The words stop coming out of his mouth. Her twin braids sway as Karma tilts her head with a slow blink, pasting on an innocent face, doe eyes and all, and greedily soaks up the sweet, sweet realization dawning on his face. Inside her pocket, her finger runs over the flat of the smooth steel blade. She can't draw it, not in front of Megu, but it's a comforting, cold weight.
See? I'm not nothing, I'm not no one. I'm not.
"You sure you still wanna go?" she asks softly, silently goading him on, do it do it do it I wanna fight again do it!
And all the blood drains right out of his face as he takes a step back, eyes so wide that she thinks they might pop out of his head, before he books it out of there at a dead run. His footsteps echo in the deserted alley as he disappears from sight.
Karma is almost disappointed, but in a more resigned way. Megu is still here, and anything can happen in a fight. With a short huff, she lets the tension go reluctantly, shoulders slumping as some part of her, a part of her that represents the freedom she hasn't had since Aincrad, is locked away along with the adrenaline.
Being strong feels pointless without him.
"That dramatic enough for you?" she asks wryly, smirking at a shell-shocked, trembling Megu, pretending that it doesn't hurt when Megu looks at her like this, like the people at the rehab center do, like the government officials asking thinly veiled questions do. "Come on, let's get home. I don't think you can take any more excitement for tonight."
They never had a problem with her strength. They valued it. They patted her on the back for it, praised her for it. And when her strength alone wasn't enough, they had her back, lending her their own.
She wants her life back; this isn't living.
o0o0o
Later that night, Karma is back on the rooftop, this time alternating between training with her knife and her wooden sword. The NerveGear sits by the stairs, the pale moonlight drawing silver swatches on the blue device.
When her vision is spinning and each breath stings her throat and lungs to draw and so much sweat is dripping into her eyes that she can't see straight anymore, she collapses on the edge of the roof, leaning over it and letting her arms hang.
"I shouldn't have done that," she sighs; the asphalt is rough on her chin, so she folds her arms underneath her head. "Next time, I won't drag her along...She thinks I'm crazy now. You think she'll tattle on me?" Guilt pangs in her heart for her complete lack of faith. "No, she won't...She would've done it by now if she was going to...and she doesn't even know who I really am." Her tone darkens. "She'd better not…"
A shiver claws its way up her spine at the implied or else, and she feels absolutely disgusted with herself for a second-
She groans, flopping onto her back, rolling her head over the edge of the building. "That's not what I meant! Ugh…Just when I started to forget how annoying you are…"
Karma throws her arms out, the cool air tickling her sweaty face. "I do feel kinda bad. I guess I did go looking for a fight." And part of her is still disappointed she didn't get one. "I guess I really shouldn't have done that...She'll never see me the same way again, even if she tries to act like it...Maybe it's for the best. It's about time she stopped being so blind."
Tilting her head to look at the steel blue NerveGear, painted silver under the moon, she lets out a soft huff. "She thinks I'm still the same person, and I'm not. I don't even know how she doesn't see it. I guess she just doesn't want to."
She sits up, her back to the five story drop, and sighs, resentment warring with guilt. "I know I'm lucky to have her welcome me back so easily...but she hasn't changed," she whispers, her voice breaking softly, "and she thinks I haven't either."
But the people that are her family are halfway across the country, some even further. Megu's the most solid, tangible thing she's got right now, right here, so what other choice does she have?
In a sudden burst of frustration, she chucks her knife at the floor; it bounces with an angry spark across the roof, grating to a stop some meters away.
"It's all your fault," she snaps at the motionless, soulless NerveGear. "The secrets won't come out of me! I want to trust her, and it's all your fault that I can't!"
After two years of being constantly, keenly aware that anyone off the streets could be a threat, that anyone could stab her in the back if she leaned on them too much, she just started looking at every stranger as an enemy by default. Made things...easier, in a sense.
But she never intended for her own friends and family to fall into that category; at the same time, it feels like she doesn't know them at all anymore. She can't help but wonder how well she knew them in the first place.
Everything has been called into crippling doubt—if the one thing that was never supposed to happen happened, then what else will fall apart, who else will leave?
She reaches out for the NerveGear, lovingly cradling it close, murmuring in a tone that sounds almost like affection, "It was always all your fault."
A yawn escapes her as she folds her arms on top of the device and rests her cheek on them, as if she was in his office in the dead of night again instead of sitting on top of a roof, listening to papers rustling and soft breathing instead of cars and strange, faint voices, as if they weren't separated by a distance she can't begin to quantify.
"I know you're out there somewhere," she breathes, as if he can somehow hear her. "I'd know if you were gone." It's a strange feeling; she knows he's not gone, but at the same time, she knows that they do not exist in the same plane anymore.
Still, she speaks; if there's the slightest chance he can hear her…
"Where are you? I wanna go home…"
o0o0o
Megu's still leery of her, but she's trying her best to act otherwise. Honestly, Karma's really not sure how Megu hasn't figured out who Akane Natsuki really is. The government tried their best to shut down the rumors a while ago, but they're probably still floating around somewhere on the internet. Maybe Megu just doesn't want to see it. That's probably why her parents haven't figured it out either; humans are good at being blind to things that challenge their beliefs, and Karma is no different.
"Looks like it'll be a white Christmas this year!" Megu declares cheerfully, beaming up at the sky as white, powdery snow drifts down prettily (Aincrad was still prettier).
Christmas, huh...Her hand ghosts the spot above her chest, where something metal should be resting warm against her skin, and her mind wanders to snowball fights and frozen ponds and sledding on anything except for actual sleds and a gift and a hug given under pine trees. She remembers mountains and the northern lights, breaths fogging in little white clouds before them, so insignificant in the face of such beauty.
Her boots splash wetly in the gray, brownish slush, and she wrinkles her nose. The snow in Aincrad was always pristine white and good for making snowballs—another illusion, but a nice one nonetheless.
"Hey, you remember Hanada, right? You used to do gymnastics with her. Hanada Kotori?"
Karma freezes mid-step for all of a split second; out of nowhere, that crippling fear comes and seizes her lungs in its grip-
"What about her?" It takes all her willpower to sound normal.
"We ran into each other the other day," she says with a shrug, tapping away on her phone; her nails go click click. "She just said hi. Told me to say hi to you too."
Karma opens and closes her mouth several times. "Oh," is all she can muster, faint and insubstantial.
"Yeah, she was in SAO too, did you know?"
Oh, god, what if she goes after Megu? A friend for a friend? Nausea threatens to pitch her lunch out onto the sidewalk.
"She said she was in a guild with her friend Haruhi, and this other girl named Rie, from your gymnastics studio." Megu makes a sympathetic noise. "Rie didn't make it out of the game, though." Her tone darkens. "Some psychopath murdered h-"
"I have to get to my job," Karma whispers, already breaking into a run. Someone honks as she dashes across the street, but she doesn't hear it or Megu's confused shout past the blood roaring in her ears.
Why wouldn't Kotori tell Megu that it was her? Maybe she didn't think Megu would believe her, which, in all honesty, she probably wouldn't. Maybe she's just holding it over Karma's head, taunting her, waiting for her to snap-
She won't, she won't, she will not-
Lungs burning for air, she stumbles to a stop at the corner, leaning against a streetlamp to regain her breath; the air is cold and stinging, and it's hard to breathe.
"Hey, didn't expect to see you here!"
Kotori grins as Karma's hand flies to her pocket. "Stay away from my friend," she demands lowly, rage bubbling in the pit of her lungs, and Kotori click clicks her tongue.
"That's rich, coming from you," she sneers, before instantly switching back to her pleasant facade. "I only told her the truth."
Karma knows that Kotori would never attack her out in the open like this. Still, it takes an extraordinary amount of willpower to even let go of the handle of her knife.
"Did you tell her you're a criminal?" she asks quietly, forcing herself to take a step forward. "You and your friends killed people, and now they're gone forever."
"I don't wanna hear it from you," Kotori hisses, boldly thrusting her face up to Karma's. "Your body count is higher than all of ours were combined. You turned Rie and all of those people into another statistic, so who's the real monster here?"
Karma wants to storm past her without a word, to not give her the satisfaction of watching her crumble at the edges, but Kotori backs up before she can unroot her feet.
"Won't be long now," she sing-songs, wiggling her fingers in a cheery wave as she slinks past Karma. "See you around...and that's a promise."
o0o0o
She'll never show it, but Kotori is driving her insane.
She shows up at the coffee shop almost every other day that Karma is working, which makes Karma wonder who the hell is responsible for keeping her under surveillance. She has Megu pass on innocuous messages for her all the time, and something cold snowballs and builds inside of Karma each time she thinks of how close Kotori is getting.
Once, she even shows up at Karma's apartment. She nearly has a heart attack when she walks in and sees Kotori cheerfully sitting there at the kitchen table, chatting away with her parents as if they're long-lost friends, and why are her parents so gullible?
"Natsuki, there you are," her mother exclaims, as if Karma isn't standing frozen on the doormat, staring wide-eyed at Kotori, who beams back. "You remember Kotori-chan, right? From the gymnastics studio? You were best friends back in the day. Remember all the sleepovers and movie nights you had?"
"What are you talking about? We're still best friends!" Kotori states confidently with a wave of her hand, her smile all teeth. "We should totally do another movie marathon sometime, though. I missed that while I was in SAO."
"Why don't you stay for dinner? It's snowing so hard, I'd hate to send you back out in that storm."
"Oh, are you sure? I wouldn't want to be a bother," Kotori says, all sugary sweet and concerned about overstepping; her eyes flash maliciously at Karma, and she wonders in cold despair why her parents can't read the writing on the damn wall.
"Nonsense! Natsuki's gotten pretty good at cooking, actually, so I'm sure it wouldn't be a bother to make extra…"
As Natsuki drops her coat on the coatrack and kicks off her shoes, eyes never once leaving Kotori, she grins and hops up from her seat. "Here, I'll help!"
"No, it's fine," Karma says, just a tiny bit proud of how even her voice holds. She doesn't want Kotori anywhere near her with a knife in arm's reach, no matter how unlikely it is for Kotori to actually make a move in front of Karma's parents. "You're the guest here." She even puts on a thin little smile as she says (more like commands), "Sit down."
This is her domain. And Karma's not sure if it feels like home anymore, but it is still a place where she has power. Kotori can't take that from her. She can't.
She won't be cornered in her own apartment.
Karma flinches as she cuts the pad of her thumb through the latex glove, and she flicks the water on, rinses the knife, and runs her hand under the water. In the background, she can hear them chattering away; it makes her sick.
"Why don't you bring Haruhi-chan next time? I haven't seen her in a while either."
"Really? That'd be great! I'm sure Natsuki-chan would love to see Haruhi again, isn't that right, Natsuki-chan?"
"Sure." Stop talking, get out, she wants to scream, but she refuses to let the words leave her throat. Not here, not in front of her parents.
"It would've been great if you could meet Rie too," Kotori continues, and Karma's grip on the knife tightens until she trembles where she stands. "She was another girl at our studio. Sorta like our leader, y'know? We all went into SAO together...but someone murdered her right in front of me and Haruhi."
Karma wonders if it would feel therapeutic to stab this fish in the eyeball right now, or punch something until her knuckles bleed. Bile rises in her throat as her parents gasp in horror, and Kotori laps it all up greedily.
"It's a terrible thing, for people to turn on each other in such a brutal game like that," her father says in sorrow.
"I know," Kotori says pitifully, her eyes drilling holes in Karma's back. "We should've been helping each other out, not tearing each other apart like that…" Hatred suffuses her voice. "I bet the killer didn't feel even a bit of guilt when she killed Rie."
Karma struggles to keep her breathing even, blinking tears away, absolutely refusing to let them fall. She spent weeks, months thinking about it. About the grief and the rage on her former friends' faces when she murdered their friend in front of them. They were killers, but they were also some of the best friends she'd ever had in another life, and even knowing the pain of watching a friend die before her eyes, she inflicted it on them anyways.
(It really does feel like a whole other life, the one she led before the floating steel castle.)
You think I haven't hated myself every hour of every day for almost two years?
"I'm so sorry for your loss," her mother murmurs softly; she can practically imagine her mother patting Kotori's hand in an attempt to comfort. "But what matters is that you're alive. You and Natsuki both."
Mostly composed again, Karma turns in time for Kotori to smile directly at her and say, "I'm glad she didn't die too. I would've been so sad if our friendship ended like that. And now we have a chance to make things right in the real world!" She laces her fingers together and leans her chin on them, eyes unblinking, smile frozen on her face. "It really is a miracle. So I'm definitely gonna make the most of it."
Karma comes to set down a dish on the table, eyes never leaving Kotori's through the thin veil of steam. "Yeah, so am I."
Her parents get up to help her get the food onto the table, and she leans in, planting her hands on the table while Kotori stares up at her, unblinking.
"Try and kill me," she breathes with a smile that doesn't reach her eyes. "Plenty of people stronger than you have tried and I'm still alive, so you'd better pray for a miracle."
o0o0o
It's thundering and snowing outside tonight in some freak weather show, and Karma can't see a thing out her window except the blizzard, sitting at her desk with coffee and her NerveGear in the dead of night. She pulls the device closer with one arm and rests her chin on the cold surface with a sigh. Her eyes follow the steam tendrils up and up.
Lightning flashes, and a hand appears plastered to the outside of the window-
The chair slams into the wall as Karma leaps back, her heart pounding frantically, carving gouges in her rib cage, and the knife in her grip trembles as she stares, eyes wide-
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Slowly, she sinks to the floor, breaths still coming in ragged gasps, and she covers half her face with a gloved hand, damp with sweat, and giggles at how pathetic she is. Is she going insane? She's probably going insane.
Being paranoid is something she's used to; being paranoid all the time, every day, is not. It's exhausting, it's scary, and she hates it so much, but there's nowhere left that she can afford to not be paranoid-
Safe doesn't exist anymore.
Nowhere—no one—is safe.
Thunder snarls at her, all around her, and she buries her face in her knees and claps her hands over her ears, sobbing.
"I hate you," she cries, and she knows she's not talking to Kotori. "I want to go home, please."
But no one's here to hear her.
o0o0o
Karma bolts awake, one hand clutching at the knife buried in her gut and encountering nothing. Gasping for breath, she shivers, a thin layer of cold sweat sticking to her clothes, exacerbating the chilly morning.
She's in her own bed, despite not remembering climbing back into it. It's so familiar, in a way that she can never be sure of ever again.
But her alarm rings, and then it's time to be
perfect
and normal
again.
"Get me out of here," she begs the NerveGear sitting on the shelf, but she knows she's all alone here.
o0o0o
how to rise from the floor, when it's not you I'm rising for? - Next Right Thing (Kristen Bell; Frozen II)
I hope someday I'll make it out of here, even if it takes all night or a hundred years - lovely (Billie Eilish ft. Khalid)
...Karma's doing Great. :)
She definitely should be asking for help with her whole situation with Kotori, but the only people who can help her are the local authority who are supposed to be keeping a better eye on Kotori in the first place, and Karma absolutely refuses to seem like she is anything less than normal to them. Nothing would come of asking Kirito or any of her old KoB friends, since they don't live anywhere near her, for one, and they have less power than she does. But the real problem is her refusing to trust anyone but herself (and even that's iffy). Heathcliff broke that for her, maybe permanently. Besides, she also was sort of terrible at that in the first place, when she refused to really reach out to anyone but him in SAO (and look where that got her). Also, she doesn't have her numbers and stats anymore that made her one of the most untouchable players in the game, and her second most precious friend/found family member, who she can't even see in person, is still in a coma. Plus, y'know, the existential crisis she had after being betrayed by Heathcliff still hasn't been resolved yet, so...
By the way, everything is great.