Aincrad, Floor 64: Village of QROW 8pm PM AST (Aincrad Standard Time)
The two warriors walked out of the cool atmosphere of the restaurant into the humid evening, the sun beginning to set over the rustic town square that greeted them. Walking hand in hand the two began the short trek back to the now familiar inn, their room recently placed under long term rent.
After a few minutes of comfortable silence, Yuuki, the last remnants of tears drying on her face under the final rays of orange light, squeezed Kirito's hand as they walked and tilted her head to face him, as both parties came to a gradual stop.
"Hey... look," she began slowly "I-I think I'm ready to talk about my past, or at least the bits you want to hear," Yuuki's eyes bore into his almost pleadingly as she continued, "But... please... please just hear me out."
Looking down at the cobble path, her face washed with a mixture of emotion and contemplation so conflicted Kirito once again found him questioning just how blackly veiled the girl's past actually was. With deliberate movements, Kirito placed a reassuring palm on Yuuki's shoulder and gave it an affectionate squeeze.
"If you think you're ready to open up about your life, I'm more than happy to listen, but please don't rush yourself or think you have to tell me everything." He offered, shooting the swordswoman a warm smile of reassurance.
Yuuki smiled sheepishly back, placing her own hand upon the one still resting on her shoulder.
"Well if you're sure, as far as tales go it's not exactly the happiest of the bunch, but you of all people deserve to know about me, especially after all this time." Yuuki squeezed the hand within her own once more and gently shrugged it off; turning away from him and in the direction of the Inn once more.
"You know," Kirito started, his voice airy, "I wasn't exactly the best friend you could've had either after... well... Asuna passed." his voice tapered off as he glanced at Yuuki's back, ebony eyes frosted with something akin to a deeply rooted regret.
Yuuki glanced back to him, her lips already forming the rebuttal he knew would come.
"You know I never blamed you for that, you had just lost your wife, Kirito, anyone would have been angry, confused, hell maybe a bit of an arsehole at times; you can't go on beating yourself u-"
"Why did you forgive me after all that?"
Yuuki turned back to face him fully, the crimson of her eyes widened in puzzlement. "You we're my friend Kirito, my best friend; we always had each other's backs on the frontlines. I wasn't about to let you suffer alone... not after everything we went through.
Kirito nodded, a shaky smile gracing his lips as he stared back. "All those reasons you just gave? The reasons you put up with me for those long months? They're exactly the same reasons why you shouldn't every worry about being alone again, about me leaving you."
He took a step to close the gap between them, encircling the petite warrior in an embrace.
"We've come this far Yuuki, anything else in our way is child's play, as long as we've got each other, okay?"
Kirito felt the lilac haired girl slip into the embrace with ease; and for a time the two relished in its warmth before parting and continuing the walk hand in hand with not a word needed.
/Scene Change/
Yuuki took a slow, calculated breath and opened her eyes, the soft glow of the flickering lamp light above them bringing some much needed calm to her mind. She briefly pondered on the familiar surroundings of her and Kirito's Room and, after taking a moment to collect herself, turned to the boy himself.
"Well, where to start?" she questioned, suddenly aware of how Kirito was sitting just far enough away to give her space, and close enough to offer comfort if needed; she was grateful for that.
Kirito tilted his head slightly, as if prompting her to start at her own accordance; Yuuki simply sighed and began to talk, furling one hand into the plain sheets for some level of support.
"I guess I should start with the fact that I'm not... or wasn't an only child; I had a twin sister, Aiko." She paused briefly to glace over at Kirito, only to see the expected surprise of such a revelation. "On the day we were due, my mother ran into issues during the labour, dystocia, or something like that. Either way, it meant she had to get a caesarean and that turned out to be a mess too; there was an accident, somewhere along the line they had to give her blood to keep us alive... but that turned out to be the worst mistake of all."
Yuuki took in yet another deep breath, glancing up at the swirling patterns etched across the white plaster of the ceiling.
"That blood, the blood they gave my Mother was contaminated... more specifically it was contaminated with HIV, the drug resistant variant." She gripped the sheets tighter as she continued, "It then infected my mother, sister and eventually, my father; but for whatever reason, not me. I had to watch, over the years, as they gradually withered away, I couldn't do anything; no amount of drugs or additional blood transfusions would even slow it down, or stop it. Then, after a couple of years, the inevitable happened. They left me. No more playing with my sister, no more bedtime stories, there was no one I had left to care for me."
"Then came the governmental officials, the ones who were more interested in the assets and property my parents had left behind and not the little girl who was without a family; they did the bare minimum and shoved me in a local orphanage as quickly as they could. There wasn't even a search for potential foster families from the get go, I was just dropped there with nothing but a rucksack and whatever I was wearing at the time. That place was, is, the last place you'd want to end up as a kid; the staff didn't care, I don't think a single one ever asked my name and most of the other kids had never known their own parents and weren't so kind when they found out I'd know mine, that I'd once been happy."
Yuuki finally looked into Kirito's face and willed her eyes to stay dry before opening her mouth again.
"At first it wasn't too bad, they just ignored me, distanced themselves from me... but after a while it... they..."
Her shoulder blades slammed against the peeling wallpaper with a resounding thud; crumpling to the floor, the girl looked up in time to see the door to the room slam shut through the tears clinging to her eyelashes.
"Look at her!"
Yuuki shrank away from the voices, the leering faces they were attached to; hot tears streamed down her cheeks as she cowered, backed into a corner.
"Aww, is baby Yuuki crying for Mummy and Daddy?"
Yuuki started to sniffle at the mention of her parents; fresh tears joining the ones already present on her panic stricken face. A rough hand came down fast and hard slapping the girl across one of her sunken cheeks and knocking her sideways into the wall; her head hit the plaster with a sickening crack, as dust fell from a new split in the already tired decor.
Yuuki's sniffles began to break into choked sobs much to the amusement of the older children.
"Well stop your whining, you little bitch." one sneered, her face hidden in the shadow of the dimly lit room, "They're DEAD!" she bellowed the last word into Yuuki's face, fine spittle spraying the younger girl.
Yuuki let out a half-scream and sprang up, pushing away the hands and arms and tried in vain to run, determined to break free of the taunts and jeers if only for a moment. She only got a few, short paces before one of the larger kids caught her once more, not a second later a bat slammed into the back of her knees with the force of a freight train.
As the storm of blows rained down, and the feeble light slipped from her eyes only the chant broke through the enclosing cloud of unconsciousness enveloping her mind. "YUUKI, YUUKI, YUUKI, YU-
"Yuuki, god, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." Kirito's voice was feeble and broken, much like the girl who sat beside him; now wracked in silent sobs that shook her slender frame from head to toe. Gently, he pulled Yuuki as close as he could, every tremble, soft and hard only served to make her distress more evident through the persistent vibrations they sent rocking though his body.
"Yuuki I..."
Yuuki, her head now burrowed in Kirito's chest, felt wet land and run down a strand of her violet tresses; looking up, she saw Kirito; tears streaming down his cheeks, much like her own.
"H-hey" Yuuki placed a hand upon Kirito's quickly moistening cheek, her voice rough and gravely.
"I-I'm alright, j-just a little exhausted after going through that is all, I'm fine now, really." Her words sounded limp and empty even to her and she knew by the shaking of Kirito's head he hadn't bought it either.
"Don't lie Yuuki, you were never very good at it anyways." he choked. The two shared a desperate laugh at that, despite the tears still running in ceaseless streams down each of their faces.
"Don't lie, you don't have too; tell me everything, tell me how you really feel, how you really are and I'll stand by you, I promise." He pulled her into an embrace, "Trust me... I... I love you Yuuki."
Yuuki let out a shaky gasp, nodding her head in agreement. "O-Okay, just please promise it to me again." she whispered, tears pooling at the corners of her own eyes; Kirito's gaze met hers jet black meeting brilliant scarlet once more.
"Stay with me."
"Always."
With that conformation, Yuuki reluctantly drew away from the warmth of Kirito's chest and drew the tip of her finger over the now visible white lines and scores that encircled both her knees, feeling Kirito's eyes follow the same gruesome tapestry.
"When the beatings first started it was fists and feet; not exactly pleasant but I could handle it y'know?" Yuuki paused and her voice became quieter. "The issue was that after a while it became whatever they could lay their hands on. Bottles, Hockey sticks, Baseball bats, you name it."
She felt Kirito's body stiffen beside her and she looked hesitantly up into his face, "And... and no-one helped you?" he whispered, his eyes further dampening with obvious disbelief and rage; Yuuki nodded in response.
"As I said, none of the staff cared, if I complained they just chalked it up to stories and blamed the cuts and broken bones on a fall down the stairs every time. All the while, those bastards knew where to hit, knees, hips, elbows, made it more difficult for me to run away." she shuddered and drew herself closer to Kirito, pulling her head back to its perch on his chest.
"To draw a long and agonizing story to a close, it went on for years; I got so bad that simply walking was beyond excruciating. Some when, one of the dimwit staff had enough sense to send me to a hospital. Thankfully, they kept me there after they realised how bad I was; mended my bones as best they could and put me through physiotherapy to try and help me get back to walking and maybe even running." Yuuki's eyes glazed over with memories far too numerous and painful to count.
"Thing was though, I was never really right again, after all the fractures, breaks and surgeries it just didn't feel like my body anymore; it felt awkward, impossible to move in properly. That's what lead me here actually, they put me inside one of the NerveGear units in a hope that if I could walk in an undamaged, realistic avatar in SAO, I could regain some of that ability in the real world."
Kirito's eyes widened in realization. "It worked then, you're a total badass here, even if you have some moments where you need to slow down!"
Yuuki smiled sadly. "That's just it; in this world, I can walk but those 'slowdowns' are the remains of my brain fighting my ability too, and the physical scars run too deep for even the NerveGear's body scan to ignore."
Before Yuuki could register that he was doing it, Kirito cupped his hand over one of her scarred knees; the initial shock and subsequent alien feeling of brilliant and comforting warmth rushing into the permanent scars letting her only gasp in response.
"Physical or mental, permanent or not; I don't want you to ever hide anything you think is shameful about you from me again Yuuki, you know why?"
Yuuki simply stared back into his eyes, their depths burning with something so fiery and sincere it left her momentarily speechless.
"Because I love you, simple as that, all of you; and no matter how bloody shameful you think a side of you is, you can be damned sure it's another side I'll learn to love." The young man finished with a line of steel in his voice, one that wholly convinced her of what he was saying.
After recovering from Kirito's words Yuuki didn't bother with words, she simply kissed him; it conveyed with it every bit of gratitude that she could muster and a positive return to every word he had spoken. Breaking away after a long while, and with her heart racing, she stood quickly and finally found her voice.
"T-thank you... really... I... don't move okay?. I'll be back in a second."
Not waiting to see his confused look, Yuuki half-ran into the adjacent bathroom; just keeping her rampant nerves at bay, and wondering whether this was the right thing to do, she quickly fumbled with her character screen on her game window and removed all equipment down to her base underwear. Forcing her rampant blush down, she offered herself a shy smile in the mirror.
Finally after a deep breath and some final hesitation, she walked back out the bathroom switching off the lights as she did. Kirito was sat on the corner of the bed, his eyes trained on his menu; reallocating slots for the various items he had acquired throughout the Labyrinth earlier, no doubt fretting over whether he had upset her or not. Hearing the bathroom door click shut, she saw him close down the featured window with a dismissive wave of his right hand; he quickly looked up and stopped abruptly, any awkward greeting or apology he had fashioned freezing like ice in his throat.
Yuuki stood shyly in the dimly lit room wearing nothing but the maroon underwear she had left the bathroom in. Slowly approaching Kirito, she placed a hand on each of his shoulders and pushed him gently back on the bed, clumsily straddling his chest all while trying to ignore the inferno of red currently both her own face and his; leaning so her face rested just above his she spoke to him in a tone barley above a whisper.
"Just two things Kirito; first things first, I love you too, I'm sorry it took an account of my entire torrid past for me to say it. Secondly, I have nothing to hide from you. Nothing. Not anymore, and if you're okay with it... I'd like to prove that to you here and now."
Kirito looked back at her with a mixture of amusement, concern and unbridled love. "Only if you're sure you want too."
Yuuki didn't bother with a response, instead, she simply pushed her lips against Kirito's with all the passion and force she could muster.
Author's Note: We're back! Long story short, I was planning to surprise you lot with three chapters at once; I even tried switching to newer software to write with to improve quality in editing and the such. However, it seems that the absolute bellends over at the Microsoft Teams and Word Online, decided to randomly delete two months of work. I'm no stranger to the service and it just vanished, so here we are. On the bright side I'm now back to my trust and totally legitimate version of Office from about 2008; it's never felt better to be home. Thanks to anyone who has stuck with this story, it means a great deal to see this pet project enjoyed by even a couple of people, and it astounds me it reached as many as it has.
Please leave a review with feedback, it always helps and motivates me even more than the new seasons of Doctor Who, RWBY and SAO are already doing.
Till next time!