A clean swing of the Confidence and a flap of her wings made Kazu's strike far more deadly than without the propulsion of her wings. The wings were incredibly strong. Kazu was getting stronger and stronger at her ability to fight inside of ALO. They were going to be arriving in the world tree's surrounding city, Alne.
The enemy which was dispatched was an illusion slinging imp. There was a flock of the small demonic creatures buzzing around like insects. Kazu flew threw them like a graceful dance, every movement she made creating a slice which wasn't wasted, either dispatching an enemy in a single stroke or leading into a slice. Not one movement which connected with an enemy failed to kill the monsters.
Shiro, Ela and Recon sighed watching the energetic Kirito fly around effortlessly. It was like watching someone who was born with wings and a sword in hand. Kirito looked like that was her natural state.
Shiro would argue that she made everything she did look natural, but it was a lost cause because both Ela and Recon already knew that aspect of her.
"You certainly have a lot of energy today Kirito-san. Did something happen irl?"
Recon's question made Kirito smile in his direction as she sheathed her swords.
"Yeah, I finally got some important medicine for my rehabilitation. My emotional state feels so much more in check than it has in a very long time. I'm really happy that you three are determined to help me free the rest of the survivors. I don't know if I could do it without you so I really appreciate you."
Recon laughed awkwardly in response, so Kirito just turned around and returned to flying ahead of them. Kirito flew at a significantly faster pace than the rest of the group because of the unique wings she had, so she was flying ahead and clearing the path of monsters. They would reach Alne in about an hour worth of flying. It was a long distance from where they started to the hub surrounding the world tree. It had already been a few days of just heading to Alne. After arriving there, they planned to scope out the challenge inside of the tree and meet up with the group who intended to try a last attempt at cheating through propelling off each other. It might also be possible for Kirito to fly right there with her unique wings.
They had tested how high Kirito could fly, but her primary restriction ended up being a fear of heights combined with the sensation of being light headed when so far from the normal elevation in gravity's pull. They weren't entirely certain how tall the world tree was, but she reached on her own, well beyond three times the height that any of the others could reach due to their wings refusing to bring them higher.
Kirito had conditioned herself and as long as she was mentally and physically prepared with her virtual avatar, she should be able to get to the top of the tree. They wondered if they were underestimating the height of the tree though, being so far from it still but it reaching so high. None could recall if Kirito's highest flight was comparable.
"I wonder if we're going to end up being of any use to her after all..."
Recon sounded depressed as those words tumbled from his loose expression.
"We've already been a significant use to her regardless of how you look at the situation right now, but by my estimate we will be required for whatever method we take to get her through the world tree challenge. Whether it be by giving her a higher starting point to fly from, or by fighting alongside her and supporting her inside the tree for the battle challenge, we'll be able to be of use. The tree by my calculations of our approach is still out of reach of her greatest height during training."
Recon perked up a little but the expression on his face contrasted that right away. Confusion.
"How are you able to tell from so far away?"
Ela went over the math equation she used to come to the conclusion that Kirito's greatest height met about the three quarters height of the tree. She wouldn't quite make it unless she had a fairly larger margin of boost to her flight.
"Wow...the way you explain it makes me feel like I'm in class, but I was able to understand what you were saying so easily. Are you a teacher irl?"
Ela shook her head.
"A few years ago I had been, but not anymore. I'm a full time mother and scientist working from home."
Recon practically glowed with interest.
"Between yourself and Kirito-san, I'm surrounded by such amazing people. Hopefully your abilities reflect on me enough that I can be successful in the future..."
Ela simply smiled to him and continued flying forward to the world tree.
Shiro had been quiet since greeting at their meet up when they were all first online for the current session. He just looked between everyone present and nodded whenever he was required to have an input.
Something had occurred outside of the game situation for Shiro. Due to the immense amount of work he had been doing alongside Kirito and Ela, he was drained of energy and struggling to keep up with his grades in school. He was warned by his teachers that he needed to bring up his grades for the next evaluation period.
Shiro was especially disappointed in himself for falling behind on his grades since even after two years of absense, Kirito had been able to catch up on the two years of studying in no time. It helped that she had previously been ahead of her studies by a significant margin, but she only needed to brush up on her held knowledge to ace her evaluation test. Kirito was working herself to an extent he couldn't imagine putting himself through, but he still fell behind. He had to work harder. He realized that he wasn't taking any of his school studies away from school.
Shiro felt eyes on him and when he looked up, Ela was facing him. Her blind eyes reflected him and he wondered if she could read his mind. She was certainly smart enough to know what plagued his thoughts.
"I have something to discuss after tonight's session, Shiro-kun."
Shiro nodded his head, his mind stuck thinking on if Ela was able to read his mind. Eventually he shook his head and subconsciously told his wings to beat faster so he could try keeping up with Kirito. It was a forgone conclusion that he wouldn't be able to catch up to her unless she stopped, but they were going to be landing shortly anyways and he wanted to talk to her alone for a minute before Recon and Ela would catch up.
Ela took the hint very quickly and held back a little, distracting Recon a little with some lore about the source material ALO used regarding the world tree being Yggdrasil and some of the fae folk being tied into that universe, how their in game war wasn't far off from the lore, but also wasn't accurate enough to use as a studying point.
Shiro caught up to Kirito about a minute after she landed. She was clearing out the landing and dancing around with her sword and wings, using the wings as further weapons or extensions of herself to push enemies into optimal positions for her to slice through them. Shiro was welcomed with an empty area of monsters. Monsters would spawn back in a few minutes, but then they would be taking off again for another ten minutes, the length of time that the standard wings would fly for.
"How was the flight?"
Shiro shrugged.
"The flight was alright.
He plopped his butt on the ground, took a stamina potion out of his inventory and gulped it down in one go, Kirito doing the same but with a more gentle and graceful set of movements.
"I'm failing in my studies."
"I had a feeling."
Kirito didn't hesitate and took a deep breath before continuing.
"I also have the feeling that you're going to follow that up with one of two statements. One I don't approve of."
Shiro grimaced and breathed out his reply.
"Then I hope that you don't mind I was considering becoming Ela's full time pupil in an online course since it would give me more time to commit to studies and help you in the future if you choose to work with her. As much as school is important, I find that there are so many things taught in school which are unnecessary to what I'm going to do with myself in the future. Using AR or VR, I can learn practically instead of with text in a classroom. Ela's an infinitely better teacher to understand than my teachers and honestly more memorable. I remember everything she teaches me, but she doesn't have the time to teach an extra student. If I were to attend her study groups when my classes normally run, I might do a lot better on my tests and be progressing more to what I want to do in the future."
Kirito sighed and laid back on the grass, her large black wings unfurling to full length on either side of her. It was a beautiful sight, her black hair and matching wings splaying out on the ground around her. The myriad of floral colours and vibrant greens of grasses contrasted with her black and purple colour scheme.
Yui flew out of Kirito's pocket and sat on her chest, and Kiin materialized, resting his head on Yui's shoulder. It was more and more a fantasy setting the more that Shiro looked on.
"It's partially both situations of what I thought you were going to say. I thought you were going to quit school to help take care of me and dedicate to your work with Ela-san instead of worrying about school at all. I have no right to tell you that your approach is wrong, because it's taking a path where you aren't abandoning anything outright, just taking a more comfortable path for yourself. I have no right to tell you it's wrong, because I'm doing much the same with my body. I could just try and mentally put up with my mind and body not matching up, but it's not so easy. Much like it's probably not so easy for you to stretch your mind so thin going from a school mind to a work mind to a game mind in order to help free the remaining SAO victims. I understand. If you want my opinion, then I think it's a good idea. Just make sure you're totally certain of this. Ela is still a certified teacher even if she isn't formally teaching her own classes, so you could participate in her study groups and take online classes separately."
Shiro was a little confused when Kirito compared it to her gender identity.
"Let's put it this way. I'm comfortable with myself in virtual reality because I can be totally female and not have to put up with the reality of my physical body situation. However it's not a permanent solution because my body is going to change eventually if I don't stick through with transition. If I don't follow through with it, I could become more masculine and be stuck with a bigger body which isn't suited to my comforts. I could be stuck with a horribly painful surgical experience. It's on a different scale and it's a different thing entirely, but it's similar to education in a way. You aren't comfortable with the classroom learning experience, you aren't learning well there, and your mind is stretched thin, forgetting what you learn in class. It's more comfortable for you to have less things stretching your mind thin. You need the comfort of having less things to think about, and your future depends on your education. You need to learn necessities relative to yourself."
Kirito stopped and put a finger to her chin to straighten it out and simplify it in less words.
"Basically, me transitioning is my approach to reaching my future comfort. For you, changing to a more comfortable and suitable learning environment will help you reach future comfort. Even if traditions and such would tell you that it's wrong to abandon the school life, you aren't abandoning it. Even if traditions tell me it's wrong to change my body, I'm not abandoning it. We're just changing our situations to suit future comfort. We know what will make us happier and more content, so we should do those things. You thought it out a lot, didn't you? You just wanted confirmation from someone important to you that it was a suitable path."
Shiro nodded his head and smiled with a heavy blush formed on his face.
"You read me like a book. Sorry it took so much to get me to understand. My mind was just struggling...to keep up I suppose."
Kirito giggled and sat herself back up. Recon and Ela had arrive just as she sat up, so they were ready for the stamina potions which were tossed to them.
"Aww, are you leaving us out of a joke?"
Kirito shook her head.
"A secret."
Recon puffed up his cheeks, but laughed with Kirito who continued to giggle a little more.
"Said what you wanted to, Shiro-kun?"
He nodded his head to her and stood up, stretching his arms, legs and back for some more flying. It took a lot of their virtual muscles to handle flying for such long periods of time. The small resting period between take offs was very useful. They could glide quite a ways, but it was better to let themselves rest a little so they could take off again and get another launch. Launching off tended to give them more distance than gliding since the turbulence and wind activity in the game could send them backward a fair bit if they continued gliding. Kirito didn't have that issue, only needing to stretch herself once in a while which they had found out she could do in mid air by getting a bit of height, gliding a bit and stretching her arms legs and back. It looked awkward to watch, but she was genuinely able to fly longer because of it. It was the least graceful thing about Kirito flying – midair stretching.
Everyone stretched for another couple of minutes, made sure their stamina was restored, and Kirito used her illusion magic to create a launching ramp for them so they could get a good starting height to fly from. The illusion ramps disappeared rather quickly, but they served their purpose. Kirito wanted to learn more illusion magic just in case something would be immensely more useful, but for the time being they just needed to get to Alne.
Kirito thought she heard something approaching through the forest so she reached out with her heightened basic senses she had leveled in Aincrad and noticed a small bird-like creature watching them. It wasn't inherently strange for an animal or bird to stare at a human out of curiosity, but it was strange so far within the game environment. Animals steered well clear of players unless they were meant for a quest, or if they were a familiar. Otherwise they would be classified as monsters.
She reached a little further just in case and wasn't surprised to find a group of green armoured players. The bird was a familiar.
"Are we trespassing? If so we're just taking a small break on our flight to Alne. We'll be on our way in a minute. If this is a hunt then I'm sorry but we'll be defending ourselves."
The sylphs who wore the same green colour of armour as Recon emerged from the surrounding of the clearing and a larger man with a stern expression on his face and a crown over his forehead. He was likely the leader of their group.
"Are you certain it is wise to challenge such a large group to a battle?"
Kirito nodded.
"I've fought more on my own."
The man snickered and gave a grin.
"You have a lot of guts for a female spriggan. Where would you have such an experience of fighting off larger numbers?"
"Another vrmmo. What's it to you? Do you intend to fight here?"
Kirito flexed her wings, spreading them out wide to her sides to show off that she was different from the typical player. The man's expression went grim.
"A cheater?"
"No, but I did complete my previous vrmmo. If you pay attention to the news you might know about me but I don't really concern myself with that. I'm looking to the future and I need to continue forward. If you intend to set me back days of progress, then I will not hesitate to use my full strength against you."
"I don't have time for a clone of a famous person. Deal with them."
The man stepped back and their group of three dozen crept in toward them.
"I warned you. Don't resent me for this."
Kirito beat her wings powerfully once to throw herself toward one of the faster approaching sylph soldiers, plunging her sword into his gut and whipping him in a pirouette toward the nearest fellow sylph. Both exploded in dying animation, leaving their remain lights burning bright. Kirito didn't give her party time to make a single move before she dispatched half a dozen of the sylph forces.
"Get her! Why are you morons moving so slowly?!"
The commander didn't budge, only giving out orders to the soldiers around him. Kirito disliked him more as she witnessed how he handled the situation. He was just throwing his group at her without considering that she was far beyond the entire group's capacity.
"It's not that they're slow...it's that I'm that much faster. You aren't very observant, are you?"
In the time it took for her to start saying that, she finished with slicing his chest armour in half horizontally, dropping the bottom half of his torso armour and exploding the rest in the breaking animation.
"Understand what you got yourself into by ignoring the chance I gave you to leave? This is your last chance. Leave us be, or I will cut you all down so you will have to suffer the full brunt of the loss being so far from any nearby spawn location."
The man gaped at her in horror.
"H-how?!"
"You must understand now that I wasn't lying before. Being stuck in virtual environments for two years has done a lot for my ability to move within virtual environments. I need to keep going in order to free the remaining trapped. Now leave us be."
He fell to his knees and continued staring in horror as Kirito flapped her wings gently, rising into the air with ease.
"You're a monster."
"After so much time to understand the online world, the true monsters are those who fight without thought or good reason. I gave you the chance and reason to leave us alone, and you gave no reason for me to hold back. You have no further warning. Leave, or I will cut you all down."
The remaining of the group flew off and remain lights blinked out from where they were. The commander sputtered out words as he left, flying away.
"You'll regret making an enemy of Sigurd of the Sylphs!"
Kirito sighed and hummed her illusion magic for the ramp, using the end of her sword as the incantation focus. The flight ramp appeared as if it had always been there, just being unveiled.
"Let's get going. No time to waste standing around."
Shiro, Recon and Ela stared in disbelief that Kirito had just shown how fierce and unrelenting she was toward other people when she didn't need to worry about them dying in reality.
