Let me just say, I did not intend to go so long without updating. Sometimes things just happen and your mind just needs to block some stuff out to get through it. 2020 was a bastard of a year and as a celebration of the new year, here's a new chapter!
*sigh*, I really wish I had the free time I used to have back in my school days, but y'all don't wanna hear me reminisce, onto the chapter!
I DO NOT Own Sword Art Online or any of it's characters
After the usual flashy light show, Kirito awoke sitting upon one of the sofa's inside of his cozy old log cabin on the 22nd floor of Aincrad. He gazed around slowly to get his bearings and to see if anyone was present inside the house as well. Doing this, he found that Asuna and Yui were still around and they immediately noticed his presence.
"Daddy!" Yui shouted as she jumped into his arms and hugged him tightly, prompting Kirito to pat her head softly.
"Welcome back Kirito," Asuna greeted lovingly from the opposite side of the living room. "I was just customizing some of the décor, felt like a little change was in order. Did you enjoy your night in the real world?" She asked cheerfully.
"Yeah I did," He replied while mentally telling himself not to mention the whole bonding with Aki. However, there was something he really wanted to mention. "I, uh, I found Toran's hospital as well," He revealed, causing Asuna to whirl around in shock.
"Y-You did!? Did you see his real body?" She asked as she hurried over and sat next to her in-game husband.
"Yeah. He's still alive luckily, but he isn't looking too good," Kirito explained as he went into full detail of Toran's IRL status, from the fact that he's in Kyoto to his sister wanting to join them so she can see her brother again as well as the fact that he's connected to the medicuboid. "So basically, the quicker we beat the game and get those blueprints off of Kayaba, the quicker we can save Toran as well," Asuna softly held his hand and delicately caressed his arm in an attempt to reassure him while he spoke, which was an overwhelming success to Kirito.
"Don't worry Kirito, we'll definitely beat this game and save Toran. But don't go and start pushing yourself, it's going to be a lot harder if you start making mistakes and pay the price. Always remember, I'm here for you every step of the way, and we'll do this together," Asuna reassured him in her trademark soft-spoken voice as she brought a hand up to his cheek and softly stroked it. Pretty soon after that, Kirito found himself doing the same to her as they leaned in and shared a loving kiss that could've lasted two lifetimes and Kirito wouldn't have minded at all. After their lips parted, they both giggled together.
"We haven't actually done something like this in a while," Kirito brought up awkwardly, but Asuna just smiled.
"Then we have some making up to do," She said before pressing her lips upon his once more. This time was more intimate as Kirito transitioned to holding her tightly around the waist while Asuna wrapped her arms around his neck. This kiss lasted even longer than the previous one but was stopped short by an unimpressed Yui.
"Mommy? Can we go now?" She asked, causing the two lovebirds to finally separate.
"Alright Yui," Asuna sighed in a shrug as she released her hold around Kirito and got back into her adventurer gear.
"Where are you two going?" Kirito asked, now full of happiness and cheer.
"Yui and I were just about to head out on a Mommy/Daughter adventure," She explained before Yui jumped into the fray.
"If Daddy comes as well, then we can adventure as a family!" The young black haired girl shouted happily, causing Kirito to shrug happily.
"What are we waiting for then, let's go," Kirito smiled as he lunged up off of the sofa and pointed towards the door. Yui made an exclamation of happiness as she bolted out the door. Kirito and Asuna held each other's hands before following suit and the three set out on a family expedition.
Meanwhile, in the real world at a café in a neat back alley of Japan, Shino Asada sat just across a polished wooden table from one of her good friends, Suguha Kirigaya. Suguha had invited her there as she had gotten a feeling from the girl's party that they had had recently in Asuna and Kirito's log cabin on the 22nd floor of Aincrad that she wasn't in the best of moods and wondered if she would've liked to talk about it.
Now, the Shino of old would've flat out refused any kind of visiting offers such as these without hesitation. But after getting to know Kazuto and all his friends, she had found herself coming ever so slightly more and more out of her shell. Not only that but she had developed an especially close bond with Suguha, the cousin/sister of the guy in question. So after accepting the invitation to chat at Andrew's café, she told her friend the true reason for her current depression, and lo and behold, it was about a boy.
Shino had never thought she would ever get so attached to a guy that her world would look so bleak without them but here she was, ranting and complaining about one anyway. Even Kazuto, despite having a ton of affection for him back then, didn't spark such change within her.
"I just…wanted to know why he acts so strangely distant at such random times, and if I could help him," She ranted quietly as she recalled the message that Toran had sent her which was the cause of her heartbreak. Suguha had bought her a drink but she couldn't find the motivation to drink it, nor even take a sip. In fact, she couldn't find the motivation to do anything really. A feeling that she hated with a passion. Suguha looked around quietly for a moment, unsure of what to say to her friend.
It wasn't a position she had been in, considering her crush was her own cousin/brother. That line was always blurry to her. Another fact that it came down to was that Suguha did actually know why Toran acted the way he did, and she wanted to find a way around telling Shino herself as ultimately, it's something that Toran needed to explain himself and she was constantly trying to think of ways to make this conversation happened.
"Have you tried talking to him since?" She asked her lost friend. She was also slightly cursing Toran for hurting her friend like this.
"No point. It's just something I need to get over and move on, isn't it?" Shino asked back as she stared sadly out the window to her left. "I've always known that I'm better off without anyone special in my life so I should've known this would happen,"
"Hey, come on, stuff like this happens to couples all the time. I don't think you should call it quits after one argument," Suguha suggested as she continued to try and be reassuring.
"That's just the thing though, we never really were a couple to begin with and it doesn't look like we were ever meant to be," She sighed. Suguha mentally grunted in annoyance. "Sometimes things just aren't meant to be,"
"Okay, well how about this then. If I can get Toran to speak to you, will you hear him out?" Suguha suggested, hoping she would finally get through to her.
"I mean, maybe. But right now, I'm a bit more interested in why you seem to be defending him so much," Shino questioned as she finally grabbed her drink. Suguha flinched momentarily and mentally panicked, worried that she had maybe said too much.
"N-No, that's not it," Suguha denied as she waved her hand around in front of her. "I just…think that considering the way he acts, he probably has a lot going on in his world and he might not want you to suffer along with him," She claimed, but only got further eyed up by a suspicious Shino. "Look, I don't know either, I just would like to believe that he's not a bad guy, okay?" She said in a panic. Shino just sighed and took a sip of her green tea.
"Here's the thing," Shino started before pausing for a short while, taking a moment to think. "I'd be happy to hear him out at least, but if you have to force him to do that then what's the point," She stated. With this, Suguha was at a loss for words. She searched for a rebuttal but the reality of it was that she was completely right. Forcing Toran to tell her his story wouldn't help anything, at least in the case of Shino not knowing the truth.
"How about this, I'll message him one more time asking for an explanation. If he replies then maybe things can start to slowly go back to normal, but if not then it's obvious that we gotta go our separate ways," She suggested, causing Suguha to bounce up.
"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea," She replied with a smile, keeping her intentions hidden.
"Well at the very least, thanks for inviting me out here. I've never really had someone who I can talk to so casually before, except for Shinkawa but..yeah," She thanked as she finished her green tea. After that, the two thanked Andrew for his service and left the café. Suguha headed off in the opposite direction as she had plans to spend some time with her parents which left Shino to walk back to the hospital by herself, which she preferred cause she liked listening to music as she walked. So she whipped out her phone, plugged the earplugs in, and let fate decide what she would listen to by pressing the shuffle button.
The first song to come up was 'Tokyo' by her favorite western artist, Owl City, which also featured a Japanese band called Owari no Sekai. She found that kind of ironic as she was currently walking through Tokyo while the song played.
To further comfort herself, she wrapped a dark brown scarf around her neck and marched on. It may have still been the middle of the afternoon but the lights of the brightest city in Japan still shone brighter than ever. Advertisements, promotions, sales, you name it. She passed by many sellers standing outside their shops seeing if they can drag any unsuspecting customers in but she was ignored by all of them since she had headphones on.
The walk from the café back to the hospital was about an hour and a bit but she was perfectly fine with that, she never liked getting rides to places that weren't far away. Back when she was a kid, her mother worked just a few streets away at a newspaper distributor which would've been a half an hour walk maximum, but still, her mother would always drive there and back, and she never really understood why she felt like she needed to do that.
By now, her playlist had started playing more Japanese songs like 'Departure' by BACK-ON and a recent song by Kenshi Yonezu called 'Shadows'. As her long walked continued, her mind drifted to the whole mission they were taking part in and why the hell she even agreed to do it in the first place. She would've been perfectly fine living this entire time without setting foot inside that game since the only game she needed to keep on going was GGO. Bow's were fine and all, but it didn't necessarily scratch the same itch that holding a sniper rifle did. All these kinds of thoughts and more were probably brought on by the whole depression she was facing what with the whole Toran thing and all. Really she just wanted to forget about all that and move on but she promised Suguha that she would send him one last message, though she doubted it would do anything.
None of them have seen Toran since after they got back from doing that puzzle cave quest so she theorized that maybe he's just doing more important things IRL and doesn't want to get back online, which is fine but she felt like she at least deserved some sort of explanation. These thoughts continued to flood her mind until she decided she had had enough and dived into a nearby ice cream shop and have a delicious cup of their Butterscotch Pecan flavor to eat her troubles away with. Not too much longer after that, she finally arrived back at the hospital.
But before she stepped inside, she wondered why she actually came back here instead of going home and doing something she was more interested in doing. Ultimately, it came down to the fact that she promised Kazuto that she would help him and his friends with the mission so after sighing in annoyance, she entered the hospital and walked back up to the room in which they were all stationed to dive before putting on her headset and let the technology take her consciousness away.
Sinon awoke in the bedroom of Kirito and Asuna's log cabin on the 22nd floor of Aincrad. As she took a moment to let herself adjust to the feeling of virtual reality, she remembered that she had logged off after the little party that all the girls of the group had while all the boys were logged off. She tried to make it look like she was feeling fine but it was obvious that Leafa had noticed the change in her mental state, hence their IRL meeting. Soon after getting used to the VR feeling again, she marched outside, wondering what there was that she could do.
At that point, she remembered that Kirito had once mentioned that the floor boss for the 22nd floor was much easier than most of the ones before it so she decided that maybe she'll go and see if she can clear the floor for everyone. There was also a forest area way down on the first floor that she had heard was good for grinding so she thought about heading down there after fighting the floor boss. However, before she did anything, she reluctantly opened her menu and proceeded to send Toran a message;
If you don't wanna talk to me about anything then that's fine, you do you. But I'm gonna be generous here; if you, for whatever reason, feel like explaining things to me now, then I'll be in the forest area on the first floor grinding some mobs in a bit. Do it, or don't. Either is fine with me.
For once she really didn't care about the contents or the proper punctuation and just sent it as it was.
"Alright Sugu, I did it, now he'll most likely just ignore it and I can move on," She thought to herself before heading towards the floor's labyrinth. The entrance to said labyrinth wasn't too far away from Coral Village, about a couple of hundred meters into a faded but noticeable dirt path leading into the forest. Honestly, she was quite surprised that no one had cleared the floor yet despite its lack of difficulty. She had the thought that there surely should've been a catch to it. Surely Kayaba wouldn't just randomly make one of the lower-mid floor bosses unusually easy. She felt like maybe shooting Kirito a quick message asking if there was any secret to the fight but she assumed he would've mentioned something like that when he talked about it a few days ago.
After dipping through a bunch of thick bush on the dirt path, she eventually reached a clearing that revealed the entrance to the labyrinth. She also realized that there were two other players standing just outside the entrance. Her intentions were to just ignore them and waltz on into the labyrinth but, to her dismay, they called out to her.
"Um, excuse me, Miss, are you planning on entering the labyrinth?" The two players consisted of one male and one female, the latter being the one who called out to her.
"That's the plan. I've done just about everything there is to do on this floor so I'm ready to see what else this floating castle has to offer," Sinon replied, hoping that the unexpected conversation wasn't going to be too long.
"We were thinking that as well. Unfortunately, my boyfriend here is too scared to fight the boss with me," She sighed in annoyance, causing the male player behind her to frolic.
"N-No, that's not what I said! I just think it's dangerous to fight a floor boss with just the two of us and that we should wait for more people to show up before we raid it. I don't want to have to watch you die, even if it is just in a game," Her boyfriend said awkwardly as he scratched the back of his head and looked away.
"With that attitude, the only one at risk of being killed is you, Atsu-I mean, Kuro," She argued back. Sinon noted that she might've almost just revealed her boyfriend's IRL name during that last statement. Suddenly, the female turned back to her.
"Sorry you had to see that, I've been trying to convince him that we'll be fine in the labyrinth for a while now. My name's June by the way, my avatar name I mean, and he's Kuro, as you heard," She said as both of them gave a greeting bow. June was a very slender and beautiful woman with very long brown hair tied up in a ponytail, not to mention she was also quite tall, around half a head taller than Sinon. She sported a fancy red pair of glasses and wore a very neat dark purple dress with yellow highlights that opened up in the front to allow more movement and long black purple leggings supported by blood slip-on shoes.
Judging from the weapon she had sheathed on her side, she was a rapier specialist just like Asuna. Kuro adorned a similar purple look but had a bit more colored highlights, mainly light blue. He had short black hair and wore a very basic looking metal padded heavy-duty shirt with baggy pants and tough-looking boots. He was clearly a sword and shield user, hence the bronze-tinted shield on his arm and sheathed one-handed sword.
"It's alright, I know how you feel," Sinon replied with a small giggle, subconsciously referring to Toran without thinking. "I'm Sinon," If this game had been GGO, the mention of her name would've sent them into a shocked frenzy. They probably would've said something along the lines of 'OMG, The Sinon, one of the highest-ranked players in the game and the most sought out free-agent sniper to ever live?' but alas, this was not GGO so, naturally, they didn't know who she was.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Sinon. Now then, shall we?" June said while gesturing to Sinon to follow her. Sinon's confusion caused her to not really react. "C'mon, you were going to fight the boss as well, weren't you? Let's do it with the three of us then," She exclaimed as she headed on into the labyrinth with a reluctant Kuro in tow. Sinon briefly remained still, questioning whether she wanted to partake in a joint boss fight.
"Eh, why not," She ultimately decided to herself before following suit. After she caught up with the two, she questioned their friendliness. "Just curious; Why are you so quick to let a stranger you just met join your party?" June put a hand on her chin as she momentarily thought but provide a quick answer.
"When I was a kid, I was always taught to never judge a book by its cover and to always be open-minded about things, especially people I meet. My golden rule is that no matter what someone may act like on the outside, there's always an honest and trusting inside. My grandma used to tell me that I should always try and help people turn their inside into their outside," June said happily before realizing what she had said. "Oh wait, crap that's not it, that sounds dodgy. How did it go again?" She asked Kuro, who just shrugged in reply. Sinon meanwhile walked silently beside them, deep in thought regarding the words that were just spoken to her.
"An honest and trusting inside, huh?" She thought to herself as her mind drifted towards the situation with Toran. Perhaps his outside was keeping his inside from coming back out and being the person he used to be around her. This thought made her think that the message she had sent him earlier was too harsh and that maybe she should've sounded a bit more caring to make him feel like he can be honest with her. Her deep thought was suddenly interrupted by a loud voice.
"I have a question," Kuro said as he looked around. "Where the fuck are all the enemies?" Sinon hadn't really noticed it until now but the guy was right. They had ventured well enough into the labyrinth and yet had not even seen, let alone fought, a single enemy.
Another Sinon heavy chapter! I actually quite enjoy writing from her perspective, to be honest. She's such a narrative character :D
What will happen next chapter? Stay tuned to see, and I promise the wait won't be as long as it was for this one.
Hope y'all have/had a great New Years, here's to 2021 being an actually bearable year.
pls excuse any and all spelling and grammar mistakes, reality is often disappointing.