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Chapter 4: The 100th Floor
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Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
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It was peaceful. Like it always was in those brief moments before a memory faded in return for a life. But with time, even that tranquility had to pass.
Kirito opened his eyes to the ceiling of the cathedral on the 99th Floor. He could hear people yelling, cursing, crying.
He felt numb.
Heathcliff the Paladin. That was the name of the Final Boss of Aincrad. He was a Boss with the intelligence and tactics of a human, and with the ability to summon monsters powerful enough to be Floor Bosses on their own to aid him in battle.
They hadn't stood a chance, still reeling from the implications of Heathcliff's identity and the betrayal within that, they'd been annihilated to the last with seemingly no effort at all. With the two summoned Floor Bosses keeping the man from being swarmed, they hadn't even been able to scratch him.
It was a complete defeat. And it was a reminder that Kayaba Akihiko didn't play fair.
Kirito glanced over at Asuna who sat slumped a bit away from him. The other Knights of the Blood weren't fairing much better, Kirito observed. Most of them had admired Heathcliff and his natural charisma, so to them this had been personal.
It'd felt personal to him, and all he'd had to go with was Asuna's admiration for a man thought dead for six months. Her predecessor as guild-leader, her mentor in battle-strategy, one of the best leaders the front-line of SAO had ever had.
The man who dumped his paperwork on her, the man who praised both her abilities and her charisma, the man who accepted her resignation from their guild with the air of understanding. Who had glanced at Kirito and not bothered with telling him to keep her happy, because he wasn't dumb enough to not see that he already would.
Brief moments that had suddenly twisted into something entirely different. A parental smile that looked so insufferably smug in his certainty that they would be among those coming for him. A man who'd spy on their happy moments as a family, who'd applaud their ability as parents, whilst in the same breath casually admitting to being the monster who'd trapped them all inside of his Death Game.
Yes, Kirito could understand why that might be taken personally by the Knights of the Blood, even if he couldn't quite remember what it felt like to be outraged at the moment. He felt a bit too... hollow inside for that.
Some of the yelling was starting to be aimed their way, Kirito noted absently, not really listening to what was being said. But some of the members of the KoB were flinching, curling in on themselves as if they were somehow guilty merely for their association with Heathcliff's betrayal.
Asuna twitched a little.
Kirito was wondering if this meant that he'd lost the title of 'the strongest player' since Heathcliff had defeated him before and was actually still alive. Or, did Kayaba not count, seeing as he was more a Floor Boss than a player? Actually, had Heathcliff cheated in their duel? Kirito was pretty sure that the man hadn't been supposed to be able to move that quickly, but maybe that had just been his imagination?
Oh, and the sword that Lisbeth had made for him had broken. Which was a shame. He'd either have to get a new one or go looking for a different drop. Being a dual-wielder sure was a hassle.
The yelling was definitely aimed their way now, people were shouting and cursing at them. Which probably meant that they believed that they needed a proper scapegoat, and that they'd chosen the Knights of the Blood for it. Kirito wasn't sure if he was included in that or not, but he had married the current guild-leader so he was assuming that to be the case.
It wasn't like being infamous wasn't normal by now, anyway.
"Shut up!" Asuna's voice pierced through the general shouting, causing everyone to take a step back.
Kirito saw tear-tracks on her face, which was a little bit annoying, because he couldn't quite remember how he was supposed to deal with Asuna crying. He thought that it might have something to do with hugging, but he got the feeling that she'd stab anything that touched her right now, so he wasn't sure if that would've been a good idea.
Asuna climbed to her feet, glaring. "Knights of the Blood. Our founder has betrayed us." Her voice echoed between the walls of the cathedral in the sudden silence. "He's-..." She gritted her teeth. "Do you really think that we're going to let a blot on our good name survive?!"
Kirito tilted his head, and realized that there was something like hope in the eyes of the KoB-members.
Asuna's glare swept across everyone gathered. "Heathcliff... is ours to kill."
A few mouths opened in protest, but Kirito simply nodded. The Knights of the Blood should of course be given the chance to avenge this slight against them. They deserved at least that much.
"Knights of the Blood, on your feet!" Asuna's voice resounded across the hall.
Kirito blinked as he suddenly found himself standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the KoB-members, not entirely sure why his body had reacted like that. He'd resigned from the guild before the Transition to this world, and he'd never really rejoined it, preferring his own black outfit instead of the white and red of the KoB.
But she'd called for him to stand, so he'd stood.
He was pretty sure that Asuna was going to force them to do a lot of teamwork stuff and even more level-grinding, before she aimed them at Heathcliff once more.
He wasn't wrong.
XXX
Shiroe was used to raids that could take weeks to clear. He supposed that he was very lucky that his body in this world was as used to camping in raid-dungeons as his old one had been to camping in front of the computer, but his mind had long since grown used to the hectic and dull mess of it all.
No, the raid wasn't a problem. Even if it was definitely a challenging raid to participate in. If anything, that just made it more enjoyable.
But there were problems.
Shiroe and Demiqas didn't exactly get along, even with the Silver Sword around to act as a buffer, and with a raid-dungeon for a distraction. That was potentially a problem, depending on if their dislike for each other made an appearance at an inopportune time, but it wasn't much of one.
Naotsugu talking to Maryelle every evening about pointless things was really only a reminder that Shiroe's old friend had apparently entered the semi-obnoxious state of his relationship with the guild-leader. And if Naotsugu and Maryelle started to end their calls with 'love you more'-marathons, Shiroe would not be held accountable for his actions.
The Silver Sword being made up out of relative unknowns as far as Shiroe's strategies were concerned was also a problem, but it was again a fairly minor one. He knew enough to know how to implement his plans, and they knew his thought-process well enough to listen to him when he shouted orders that William hadn't given. There really wasn't a need for anything more than that.
No, to Shiroe, the main problem was the fact that nobody stifled a laugh when he made an insulting hand-signal, nobody sat down across from him when he was working in order to glare at him until he remembered to eat, nobody shared his enthusiasm for curry – though they hadn't really had much in the way of decent food since arriving either – and nobody was falling asleep on the couch next to him and making distractingly breathless noises.
Shiroe was a loner by nature. It wasn't necessarily that he disliked others, so much as that he found it easier to simply rely on himself and not have to think about the people around him. He was used to it, and he was content with it. Mostly, anyway.
He'd made friends with the members of the Debauchery Tea Party, and he'd picked up a few friendly acquaintances as he'd gone about his life, but in the end he was a loner.
Which was probably why he'd been so utterly blindsided by the realization that he missed Akatsuki.
It wasn't that she was talented in combat. She was, but she hadn't really had any experience with full raids, so including her in this one would've been almost entirely a learning experience for her. She might have excelled at it, she might not have, but the Silver Sword already had experienced participants and it would've been tough for her to compete with them.
It wasn't that she kept him from forgetting important things, though she definitely did do that. Naotsugu didn't seem overly surprised to have to drag Shiroe away from his work when his body needed a break, and the Guardian was fairly good at it too.
It wasn't even that she smiled at his silently signed jokes, or that she grabbed his bag when he inevitably forgot to grab it himself. He just missed her.
He missed having someone pull with hesitant gentleness at his shirt in order to catch his attention. He missed having Akatsuki deliberately go out of her way to bother him with 'my lord'. He missed the way she squeaked when someone snuck up on her. He missed the way she'd threaten him with wrinkles for frowning all the time. He missed-...
He missed her. Really badly.
In fact, he missed her so badly that he'd found himself honestly considering taking a page out of Naotsugu's book and calling her up to talk about utterly pointless things. Except, he couldn't actually do that.
Shiroe wasn't really very good at small-talk, so it'd end up being a 'what funny thing has happened up here', which might've sounded like a decent subject until one realized that it could easily be interpreted as 'we have lots of fun up here without you'. And he knew his stubbornly loyal ninja well enough that she'd instantly launch herself head-first into the most pessimistic conclusion she could find.
He couldn't talk about fun things that he was doing, because it felt like he was laughing at her for not being there to experience them with him. And Akatsuki was probably worse at small-talk than he was, so it wasn't like he could just listen to what she was doing.
No, the only contact he had with Akatsuki was during her reports on the 'mission' he'd assigned to her. And he was kind of both really glad and really disappointed that those calls weren't video-capable.
He missed seeing her face, but considering that he'd caught himself signing weird approximations of 'miss you' in a language that didn't actually have those words-... Well, it would've been really embarrassing if she'd actually seen that.
XXX
Kirito wasn't entirely sure how truthful Heathcliff had been during that fight, but he was still oddly compelled to believe the man.
The Safe Zones of Aincrad was a magic that didn't exist in the world of Elder Tales. So how did they work? Obviously it wasn't the same ambient magical circles that protected the cities of Elder Tales, but there had to be something that was being sacrificed, just as Adventurers gave up some of their memories in order to return to life.
According to Heathcliff, it was powered by death. Not in the sense of human sacrifice, but more in the sense of damming up a river in order to power electrical turbines. When the People died of natural causes, the energy expelled from 'everything that they was' passed through the magical equivalent of those turbines. And those turbines in turn powered the magic inherent in Aincrad.
That much Kirito was nearly entirely convinced was true, though in all likelihood massively simplified for the sake of their comprehension. The question was whether or not Heathcliff had lied about the rest of it.
An Adventurer could tie themselves into that flow, and die permanently.
Kirito was fairly sure that Heathcliff believed it, though he was probably not entirely sure if he'd die properly or just kind of get 'used up' entirely by actually entrapping his entire being into the system, rather than simply passing it through like the People were designed to do.
Either way, it really only mattered in the sense of Adventurers wanting to die rather than survive in this world without death. Or possibly to the citizens of Aincrad when presented with the possibility of the gigantic mountain-kingdom running out of energy. Not that the latter one should be of any true concern.
Heathcliff mused that – even with teleportation up and running at ten times the rate it'd been during SAO – it would still take them centuries to deplete the current reserves of magic, and that was if they managed to somehow stop any new energy from being added to the system. As it was, if anything, it ought to be gaining noticeably more energy as time passed rather than losing it. Especially since Aincrad was no longer capable of flying in the sky.
Not that anybody was really willing to take the man's word for that, but despite his ruthlessness and his casual cruelty, Kayaba had a sense of fairness to him that made him unlikely to lie about the consequences of him being killed by the Clearers. And he'd promised that with his death, they'd have access to the Cardinal, the system that kept Aincrad running, even if it'd been massively reduced during the Transition from the intricacies of what it'd once been.
In the end, it didn't really matter. Regardless of everything else, they needed to kill Heathcliff.
It wasn't just a matter of removing a blot on the name of the KoB, or vengeance against him for trapping them all in SAO for all that time, but also simple practicality. As long as Heathcliff lived, it wasn't impossible to imagine that he could leave his throne at the 100th Floor, and – if he did – he could likely cause untold havoc before anyone managed to stop him.
Kirito shook those thoughts from his head and concentrated on the moment.
Yui was cheering him on, and his opponents were just as tired as he was. He just needed to push a little bit further, and then maybe they'd all be ready.
Ready to kill a madman and depose a king from his throne.
XXX
Dying had been kind of hectic, but actually 'being dead' seemed fairly serene. Which Shiroe would easily admit to fit in with the stereotypes surrounding it all.
Sure, most people considered death a one-way kind of deal, but then most people weren't Adventurers. It was still a bit weird to experience it for the first time, staring up at the planet from the surface of the moon.
Akatsuki was there too, and the signal for 'follow' slipped past his fingers before he even realized it. She straightened, a small smile flickering on her face as she fell into step with him, and for a moment the world suddenly seemed right again.
He hadn't even realized that his usual pace had shortened a long time ago in order to make it easier for her to keep up. It was more noticeable now, after the time spent apart. And he wasn't sure if it was comforting or embarrassing to see his habits echoing their peculiar relationship.
The lighting in this place was strange, cold and harsh but gentle and dark at the same time. He was pretty sure that he would've stabbed Naotsugu if the man had popped out of the woodwork, simply because he wouldn't be able to recognize him.
But Akatsuki still looked like Akatsuki. A little bit ethereal perhaps, a little bit freer to smile and laugh outside of her traditional ninja-clothes.
Actually, Shiroe wasn't entirely sure how he could recognize her so easily, how everything slid into place the moment he saw her face. It was-... Ah, perhaps he might've been staring at her sleeping face a few too many times. That might explain it. He should really stop doing that, even if she always looked so peaceful-...
Shiroe sighed and turned his attention away from that subject and towards battles that he might actually win.
Two weeks into December already, he supposed that they hadn't completely missed the chance to return home before Christmas, if they worked hard at it. But it was entirely possible that their raid-group would simply break apart under the strain of a Total Party Kill, especially considering the idea of fighting multiple raid-bosses at once. That was just unfair.
And if they broke here, there wasn't much choice but to return to Akiba in defeat. Which Shiroe very much disapproved of, even if it'd mean that they'd have plenty of time to catch the entirety of whatever Christmas festival Maryelle managed to think up. It might be nice to go to a festival that he wasn't in charge of the paperwork for, for once.
It'd be an interesting change of pace.
XXX
Whoever had designed their attack-strategy was insane.
Despite the rumors, Kirito had never soloed a Floor Boss. He'd been a major contributor to Gleam Eyes back on the 74th Floor, but it'd already been worn down by the first group of attackers, and then Klein and Asuna's combined charge.
So whoever thought up the crazy idea that he could – completely on his own – take on two of Heathcliff's summoned Bosses at the same time-... Well, either they had an awful lot of unsubstantiated trust in his abilities, or they were completely insane.
Of course, it was entirely possible that as long as he simply kept them distracted long enough for the others to whittle down Heathcliff's health-bar, it'd still count as a win. It wasn't like Heathcliff would be coming back to life, regardless of if his summoned Bosses killed them after he went down. Not unless he'd been lying about him having already made sure that he wouldn't respawn into this world.
So Kirito just needed to focus on keeping alive, without losing the aggro of the equivalent of two separate Floor Bosses at once. All the while keeping a careful eye out for the possibility that Heathcliff might disengage from his own fight in order to flank him.
Thankfully, the Bosses of SAO had never been all that imaginative. They were huge, could survive massive onslaughts by sheer amount of HP, were able to dodge around almost anything, used sword-skills, fought cleverly, and hit like a truck. But it wasn't like they really had any abilities beyond that. There was no weird magical bullshit being thrown his way, just swords.
In order to beat them, he only really needed to be better than they were when both of them were working together. And his guild was counting on him to do that, trusting in him to be able to protect their backs whilst they dealt with Heathcliff through sheer overwhelming numbers.
That was the plan, and Kirito couldn't quite keep the bloodthirsty smile off his face. He could hear the battle-cries of the rest of the Knights of the Blood, with Asuna's roar briefly drowning out the clashing of swords.
Christmas Eve was fast approaching, and it'd been a very long time since Kirito had last had a guild to look forward to it with.
So, no matter what. No matter how impossible the battles they asked him to win was, he wasn't going to fail them. Not this guild. This one, he was going to protect. Insane and impossible battle-strategies or no.
It shouldn't be that hard to kill two Floor Bosses at once all on his own. He'd just need to be the absolutely strongest player in the game, and then prove it beyond doubt.
He could totally do that.
XXX
When they finally tumbled down the stairs to meet the rest of the Clearers, Kirito was pretty much being carried.
He couldn't really feel his arms, and his knees kept buckling under his weight, but everyone was grinning at him as they dragged him along with them, so it wasn't like they minded it.
It was Asuna who spoke up, face tired but somehow unfathomably noble in the evening light of the 99th Floor. "Heathcliff is dead." She declared, eyes fierce as she stared down the other guild-leaders of the front-lines. "The duty of the Knights of the Blood is fulfilled. You may proceed."
There were a lot of weird faces going around, scrunched up and slack-jawed and poker-faced all at once.
The leader of the DDA was the one who answered. "Oh no you don't!" He glared at her. "You totally got to fight the Final Boss all on your own. You're not leaving us to deal with the goddamn politics of this shit!"
Klein nodded seriously, along with a great many others, but Kirito got the strangest feeling that Klein was trying not to grin.
"If you get to pull rank and call dibs, then you can deal with being the one in charge!" The man grinned evilly. "Long live the Queen!"
Kirito's jaw dropped, and Klein folded in half from laughing, as the rest of the front-line echoed the man's declaration.
Even so, despite how loud it got as people cheered in celebration of their not-yet-coronated new queen, it still couldn't quite drown out Asuna's hysterical pleas about 'not wanting to deal with the paperwork'. But it came pretty damn close.
XXX
He could see Aincrad far in the distance, but it was Akiba that drew his eyes as they approached.
They were home. Finally, after nearly six weeks worth of being away, they were returning home.
He could distinctly remember a few hints about the changes in the political climate whilst he'd been away, but there wasn't much worth lingering on. Aincrad had gone into isolation again, and though they still let trade pass through their ports, nobody had been able to contact the two councils governing the mountain-kingdom for almost as long as Shiroe had been gone.
Considering the timing, Shiroe would guess that it had something to do with the Clearers finally reaching the 100th Floor, though he couldn't really fathom why that would've caused them to break contact with the rest of the world. When asked, the citizens of Aincrad simply insisted that the councils were far too busy to be bothered.
Honestly, Shiroe was willing to guess that it was the Council of Guilds that was too busy with whatever had been uncovered at the 100th Floor, and that the People's Council simply remained as hilariously ineffectual as it'd always been rumored to be. Then again, considering the ridiculous stories about the latter council being founded by the single worst politician in the history of mankind, it was highly likely that any sort of rumor at all from Aincrad's side of things would always be massively overblown.
Still, he might've expected Aincrad breaking off contact for a week or two, as everyone stumbled around trying to figure out what to focus on when the entirety of Aincrad had been Cleared. But for over a month? That was unsettling.
Unfortunately, there wasn't much they could really do about it except wait and see. Aincrad was Aincrad, and it'd solve its own problems in its own way. They were far too independent to do otherwise.
Landing and slipping out of the gryphon's saddle, Shiroe very deliberately didn't roll his eyes at Tetra's antics with Naotsugu. He was sure that there wouldn't be any serious trouble between them and Maryelle, if only because Tetra was actually quite perceptive to people's moods, no matter how obnoxious the healer might act.
Minori and the rest looked healthy, which probably meant that nobody had done all the paperwork that would've no doubt accumulated in Shiroe's absence. So he had that to look forward to.
And he only really realized that Akatsuki had taken up her position behind him when his shoulders suddenly unwound themselves on their own. He trusted her, to the point where his body apparently considered her near-undetectable presence to be almost as relaxing as passing out on a couch somewhere.
Glancing back at her, she looked older somehow, more mature, and it took him a moment to remember that she'd been there when he'd died. That she'd been fighting just as hard as he had been, and that she'd probably finally found friends of her own.
That maturity however, didn't stop her lips from twitching in wry amusement at his halfway aborted a signal that hurriedly moved into a 'stand easy'. It was the closest thing they had to 'hello', and the aborted gesture had come very close to mixing 'stay' with the more abstract 'wish' which was supposed to represent a hopeful scenario that did or did not come to pass.
Again, their made-up language was very much in its infantile stage, but he was pretty damn sure that Akatsuki could guess that what that signed had been meant to be.
Especially since she smiled, vocally welcomed him home, and signed the same damn signal back to him with an added 'my lord'.
Staring at the stubborn little ninja who'd sworn herself to him, Shiroe couldn't quite stop the blush rising on his cheeks. So instead he immediately turned his attention as far away from those kinds of thoughts that he could, and turned to address the rest of his guild.
Regardless of everything else that could've ended better. He'd made it back before Christmas Eve, at least. And he was kind of curious about what mad plan Maryelle had come up with to celebrate it.
XXX
Kirito wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry about everyone deciding to insist to make Asuna's coronation into a big ceremony.
On the one hand, watching his fiercely practical wife dress up in ridiculously extravagant clothes and be blatantly uncomfortable about it was kind of hilarious. On the other hand, it meant that he somehow ended up being the one juggling Yui and the paperwork with the guild, since Asuna was so obviously busy.
The Vice Commander thought he was being sneaky about it, always giving Kirito the paperwork with lines like 'having Asuna look it over', but adding that he 'wouldn't be opposed' to having Kirito's opinion on the matter as well. And considering how Asuna had to nearly walk over bodies to have the time to visit the bathroom some days, that in effect translated into 'Kirito, look this over for me'.
It would've been sneaky, and he might've actually fallen for it, if it hadn't been such a fantastic plan that he'd thought of doing it for himself. As it was, he was mainly just annoyed that the man kept dumping important papers in his lap when half the stuff in it was information about stuff that he already knew.
That is, until the man cheerfully handed him the result of a vote that the rest of the guild had done entirely without his input.
'Her Majesty, Queen Asuna of Aincrad' was long enough of a title for any person. It'd sound really awkward if they put in a 'Guild-Leader of the Knights of the Blood' in there to go along with it, in no small part because everyone would start expecting them to be on the receiving end of some very blatant favoritism from the woman in question.
So obviously Asuna couldn't really be classified as the guild-leader any more, even if the KoB had cheerfully set themselves up for becoming the new 'royal guard' in order to remain by her side. But every guild needed a guild-leader, and it was KoB tradition to dump that position on some poor noble sucker who couldn't abandon them if he tried. Or, that was what they had decided that the tradition was, anyway. They'd only ever had two previous guild-leaders after all.
The conclusion had been to give Kirito as much responsibility as they could, and see what he did with it, and then cheerfully announce that he'd already been promoted the moment he got used to his new workload.
Kirito hadn't quite expected that, because he hadn't really thought to consider worrying about the succession in the guild, let alone come up with a plan to dump it on some poor noble sucker who wasn't him. He'd clearly been massively neglectful in his contingency plans.
But all of that meant that he was nearly as busy as Asuna was, because apparently the other guilds had been holding off on answering tons and tons of diplomatic issues whilst the KoB readied themselves to kill Heathcliff. So now that everything was back to normal, Kirito was dragged off to sit in on meeting after meeting where the DDA kept trying to be utter dicks to everyone – it was who they were, and they'd long since embraced that fact wholeheartedly.
Everything was still massively inefficient, because nobody had really managed to wrestle the People's Council's assembly of over a hundred different representatives into a smoothly functioning machine. Consisting as it did of both representatives of each respective Floor, and various bigger groups that operated on a inter-Floor basis, it added up to a whole lot more people than one might assume. And the sheer mass of people meant that even the simple idea of each of the members of the People's Council being given a chance to make their voice heard on any given issue would take them weeks of delegation.
The Council of Guilds was much more efficient, dealing with less people, and having mostly mutated into its current form with a little tweaking of the Clearers' Council of SAO. Everything in there was mostly variations of routines that had been allowed to settle into place over the years trapped in the death-game.
Still, everything was slated for settling down for their family of three by the end of Christmas. Until the DDA revealed their gleeful attempt to drive them into new depths of madness, by showing off their recently-completed parade-schedule.
They'd actually been forced to write in the hours that Asuna and her royal guard would be allowed to sleep during the several weeks of non-stop parades. It was something along the lines of four hours a day, if they figured out how to eat whilst sleeping.
Kirito secretly swore to himself to master that technique one of these days, because it would basically mean combining his two most favorite pastimes into a single one. But that didn't stop him from seeing the massive problem.
They were seriously going to die, if they couldn't figure out a way to argue that they didn't actually have time to go gallivanting around on parades – no matter what the DDA and their supposed expertise on morale had to say about it.
Everyone knew they were just being dicks, but that didn't change the fact that someone had to make the parade-schedule, and it was kind of a massive undertaking that nobody wanted to expose themselves to. Even when Asuna held them at sword-point – they'd tried it, but the guild-leaders were clearly made out of sterner stuff than most.
All in all, they didn't actually have a good reason to refuse the parade-idea or at least shorten the amount of them without insulting the Floors that they tried to skip, which would leave the People's Council wailing to high heavens about discrimination. And there were cat-herders with easier jobs than dealing with those guys when they were on their good behavior.
So they desperately needed an excuse that wasn't personal, and that all of Aincrad could agree on the importance on – even if only grudgingly – in order to dodge out of as much of the DDA's hellish schedule as they possibly could.
The obvious conclusion was to simply leverage 'international relations' into the conversation and then go on a well-earned vacation somewhere that wasn't in Aincrad.
And what do you know, Akiba had apparently decided to hold some huge Christmas festival that the Queen of Aincrad couldn't possibly avoid attending when they'd clearly sent an invitation to it.
It was highly likely that nobody in Akiba had actually expected anyone important to grab onto that invitation, and that the invitation had been more a polite nod to say that whoever Aincrad wanted to send their way wouldn't be refused entry. So they were probably going to be utterly panicking over the idea of Aincrad having a queen, let alone that said queen was planning on passing out on their couch for a while.
Along with her entire guard of course, and the princess, because royalty should try and stick together to make it less of a headache for their poor overworked bodyguards.
It was the perfect plan, and Kirito even made sure that each of his guild-members brought their own pillows for the trip. After all, it wouldn't do to miss out on their scheduled relaxation-time because of lumpy or inadequately provided sleep-necessities.
A guild-leader had to think about these kinds of things.
XXX
Shiroe very nearly groaned when he heard the news.
Princess Rayneshia was a very laid back kind of person, whose main hobby seemed to consist of not crawling out of bed that day. Which meant that – despite being royalty – the princess was really quite easy to accommodate.
A visiting queen – along with her entire contingent of guards, and a princess – on the other hand was something completely different. There would be security concerns both for the safety of the visiting royals, but also for the city of Akiba as a whole, considering that they would be bringing an outside force within its walls.
Perhaps it might've been easier if Akiba had still had its magically powered guard-force, but that had recently been disabled in order to stop the serial killer running amok, and was likely to remain inoperable for the next few decades at the very least. All of which meant that the queen's guards would theoretically be capable of causing an awful lot of damage, should they so desire.
So, even ignoring any potentially grating personalities, there was a dual-layered security necessary to deal with the visit. And most everyone who could provide it were either away with Crusty dealing with the goblins, or still kind of caught up in Maryelle's plans for the Christmas festival.
Which meant that Shiroe would need to step in and pull off a miracle within the first day of coming home from a full raid.
Was his luck really awful, or had the world somehow adapted to his ability to 'do the impossible' until it refused to let anything be easy? Shiroe wasn't sure, but he was definitely going to complain about it, even if only inside of his own head.
Akatsuki carefully turned her face away, her shoulders shaking as she somehow managed to divine what was going through his head.
Shiroe sent a brief glare at his own hands, who'd betrayed his deliberate silence by signaling his desire to stomp on someone for giving him even more paperwork to deal with. He really needed to get that under control, if only because Akatsuki having a direct path into his mind would likely mean that she'd figure out why he kept wincing whenever she sounded out-of-breath.
His traitorous imagination had never really recovered from the tango-incident.
XXX
Akiba was peculiar and kind of familiar in a distantly nostalgic way.
It wasn't that Kirito had ever been there before, but rather that the people in it and the businesses that had sprung up around it were a lot like the ones a person might find back in Tokyo. Sure, there was a bizarre twist to things, considering the monsters and the magic, but the core of the attitude and inventiveness was there.
Aincrad didn't have anything at all like this. During the two years they'd been trapped in SAO, things had been forced into some very specific patterns that didn't really lend themselves to the kind of chaotic businesses that could be found in Tokyo. And by the time the Transition removed that forced restraint, they'd all grown a bit too used to Aincrad to really change anything about it.
So, despite how their origin-world was the same as that of the Adventurers, Akiba was very much a foreign experience to the citizens of Aincrad.
Still, they weren't there to sight-see, but rather to find a couch to crash on for a couple of nights until the DDA's parade-schedule was a completely lost cause. Not that anyone had probably been willing to explain that to Akiba, considering the somewhat nervous reception that they got on their arrival.
Asuna was a queen now so she'd been stuffed inside of an extravagant carriage for the trip, and with a contingent of thirty people surrounding it, it became something like a miniature parade. With all of the curiosity that such a spectacle obviously drew.
Honestly, Kirito was still feeling a bit sore about his guild sneakily promoting him to guild-leader, but he could admit that his displeasure was in no small part because the promotion meant that he no longer had any excuse whatsoever for not wearing the uniform. And he'd liked wearing black.
It kept Asuna from snickering at him.
Yui looked utterly thrilled to be there though, seeing how she kept craning her neck and turning every which way in her seat in order to look at their surroundings properly. And most everyone else of the guild were clearly amused by her reaction to it. Kirito could relate, seeing as his daughter was the most adorable daughter there had ever been.
XXX
Shiroe easily recognized the uniforms of the Knights of the Blood, though this was the first time he saw the colors on Kirito. Then again, he wasn't seeing the uniform on Asuna, so maybe there was a correlation there.
Actually, Asuna had a crown on her head, and wait wouldn't that mean-... Ah, so Aincrad had a princess of the People, and a queen of the Adventurers. That might've made a lot more sense if Shiroe had the faintest clue about the political climate of Aincrad, but nobody really knew anything at all about its government and politics.
Shiroe was pretty damn sure it was because Aincrad was still in the stage of 'inventing traditions', meaning that they couldn't really explain what they were doing until they'd already done it at least once before. But he'd still be much happier to have some kind of insight into the process of it all.
He knew there were two councils. One for the Adventurers and one for the People. And now he knew there were two royals, but considering the differences in titled rank, he wasn't sure if they were considered the only members of two different royal families, or if they were considered as two members of a single royal family.
Also, he was pretty sure he remembered Asuna being a guild-leader who dressed in the KoB uniform, and even if she still had some of the colors, what she was wearing definitely wasn't the guild's uniform. So it was entirely possible that she might not technically be a guild-leader any more. Especially since, from the way she was fidgeting with her dress, Shiroe was guessing that it was a formal kind of thing related to her new position rather than anything she'd actually chosen for herself.
Even their daughter's formerly simple white sundress had become somewhat extravagant since the last time Shiroe had seen them. Though the girl in question seemed far too curious about Akiba to care much about what she was wearing.
And speaking of their daughter, Shiroe couldn't quite help the narrowing of his eyes as he once again considered the girl's title naming her as one of the People. She was vulnerable. More so than any other single piece of the government of Aincrad, and Shiroe couldn't help but worry over how some unscrupulous type of person would likely be willing to aim for 'the weakest link' in order to unbalance Aincrad's current stability.
He kind of wanted to share the contract he'd developed for Rudy with the family of three, just to be able to get some peace of mind, but there was no telling how the People of Aincrad might react to their Princess of the People suddenly being an Adventurer. Not to mention the personal and political ramifications if anyone were to ever find out that Shiroe actually had a way to turn someone of the People into an immortal Adventurer.
That was the kind of thing that might see nations beating down their doors with demands to join their ranks, and there was the distinct and unsettling possibility that some of them might abuse the concept of immortality terribly. After all, being immortal meant that you were 'divine' according to the culture of the People of the Land, and there always tended to be some really nasty individuals showing up in history whenever someone claimed divinity over someone else.
It was a shame, because telling them of it would probably also be a weight off of the shoulders of the princess's parents. But he wasn't really all that good at trusting people at the best of times, even if he was trying to get better at it, and there were a great many ways it could go wrong. Hopefully, he'd be able to get a better view of the risks and gains involved long before someone was crazy enough to attack the young girl, so that he'd actually know what to do about it.
Still, despite the unusual and uncharacteristically pompous arrival, there was no denying that Asuna had the regal bearing of a natural-born leader. And the impression from the whole procession was really quite impressive. It truly looked like a foreign leader visiting Akiba, despite Shiroe's certainty that Aincrad hadn't had royalty at all until a few scarce months ago.
He wasn't sure if that meant that they were good actors, or if they believed their new positions to be justified somehow. Considering how little they knew about the actual details surrounding Asuna's coronation, an election by the citizens of Aincrad was about as likely as a tyrannical grab for power from her side.
Shiroe would've bet on it being more of an election-process, but it wasn't like anyone had actually received a decent answer when asking, so it was hard to tell.
It didn't look like Argo had come with them though, so at least they'd be safe from having Serara stare heartbroken at any of Nyanta's interactions with the young woman. That had been uncomfortable for everyone, in no small part because she'd really looked to be on the verge of tears when those two had started in on their demonstration of tango.
Thankfully, Shiroe wouldn't be dragged into the paperwork-mess that Maryelle's Christmas festival was likely to become, seeing as he'd be babysitting the visiting dignitaries and their entourage. But even so, he got the distinct feeling that this whole visit would be a headache and a half, all on its own.
XXX
There weren't really any schedules for their visit, though Shiroe had made sure to have an open spot in his own should they actually want some kind of tour of Akiba and the festivities. There weren't even any political reasons for the visit that Shiroe could see, unless they were planning on talking about trade-agreements – and then he was fairly sure someone would've warned them about the details, so that they could make the correct people available to deal with it.
So he'd decided to drop by once the contingent had settled in, and see where the conversation went from there.
The man in the KoB uniform shrugged apologetically. "It's been a long trip."
Shiroe felt a skeptical eyebrow rise to the occasion, because surely he wasn't trying to imply that a bunch of Adventurers would've tired out from a carriage-ride that couldn't have lasted more than a few hours. Shiroe knew perfectly well that Adventurers could march and fight through an entire night and day without any real problems – as long as their health-bar wasn't depleted.
The man sighed, before laughing sheepishly. "Right, right. Well, it's been a pretty intense few weeks for all of us. So they're catching up on sleep."
Shiroe adjusted his glasses. "I know that there were rumors about the councils being busy, but I'm curious how that translated into you crowning a queen."
The man stared at him for a long moment, before shrugging again. "It's not like it's really a secret. But... basically, nearly six weeks ago, we found Kayaba."
Shiroe felt a chill crawl down his back. He'd sort of assumed that the madman who'd trapped the Adventurers of Aincrad in SAO had been a nonentity, that even if he'd been able to access the death-game, he hadn't followed his victims into Elder Tales.
"Yeah." The man nodded, face solemn as he watched Shiroe' expression. "He was the 100th Floor Boss, and-... Well, to make a long story short, Asuna-san pulled rank on the rest of the Clearers to let our guild get the first clear shot at him." He made a weird motion with his hand. "And when we won, the rest of the Clearers figured that if she could actually get away with pulling rank on them, then they should just make it official and name her 'queen'."
'Won'. It sounded like such an innocuous phrase. But Shiroe knew full well what it meant. To defeat a Floor Boss, one needed to kill it. And considering that the man didn't follow it up by telling about how they had to drag Kayaba out of the cathedral and into a prison-cell or something, the madman probably hadn't survived being killed.
He was standing in front of someone who'd killed a man. Or at the very least helped put the man in his grave. And Shiroe wasn't even sure he could fault him for that. Kayaba deserved a lot of things for what he'd done, and none of them were nice.
But still, this was definitely the face of a man who'd been to war. A veteran soldier, when Japan hadn't seen war for decades.
It was a little bit unsettling, but Shiroe had more important things to wonder about. "How did she pull rank? I thought all the guild-leaders were equal?"
The man's expression didn't change at all. "You'd have to take that up with her majesty."
So apparently there were still some secrets involved in whatever had happened during those weeks, though it was entirely possible that the man simply didn't know. He had a good poker-face.
Regardless, if they'd been so busy for all that time... why in the world had they suddenly decided to come to Akiba?
The man tilted his head at the question, before grinning in amusement. "Well, see. Somebody needed to make the parade-schedule. And the DDA volunteered."
Shiroe frowned. Not entirely sure how that was an actual explanation, especially considering that the procession earlier that day hadn't really classified as a parade by any real measure.
The man shook his head, still grinning. "They made it on the assumption that we wouldn't actually need to sleep during the several weeks of it. And so our gracious guild-leader vehemently opposed it."
Shiroe was suddenly reminded of the fact that he'd seen Kirito wearing the KoB colors, and wondered if that had anything to do with the 'guild-leader' the man was referring to no longer being Asuna. It wouldn't make any sense that he called her by the title of royalty one moment and guild-leader the next, most people stuck to a single form of address when talking about people.
"So, you're visiting Akiba, because you don't want to attend the parades in Aincrad?" Shiroe tried to summarize what the man was saying.
The man nodded, looking amused. "Everyone knew the parade-schedule was useless, but nobody wanted to put in the work necessary to fix it, and the DDA mostly just made it like that because they're dicks."
"Ah! You said a bad word!" The voice of a young girl piped up from behind the man, causing him to do a full-body flinch.
"No I didn't!" The man waved his hands, panicked. "I said 'digs'!" He tried to correct himself by forming a senseless sentence.
Yui narrowed her eyes at him. "That makes no grammatical sense at all! I know what I heard."
The man met her glare head-on, before visibly wilting. "I-... I'll teach you another one, as long as you don't tell anyone and never use them where your parents can hear you."
Yui grinned, childishly menacing face disappearing behind a sunny smile. "Yay!"
Shiroe got the distinct feeling that the princess was a very sneaky type of kid. He couldn't say that he disapproved.
Ah, Minori could probably learn a lot from watching the adorable little girl wrap her bodyguards around her fingers. He'd have to make sure they met at some point. It wouldn't do to hamper the potential of his own apprentice through negligence, and it was very important to know how to properly manipulate someone into doing what you wanted them to do.
Akatsuki stifled a laugh, and Shiroe belatedly realized that he'd accidentally signaled that particular train of logic to her.
He glared absently at his hands, again swearing to himself to get that fixed before he accidentally told Akatsuki about why he needed cold showers in the mornings. It wasn't his fault that his subconscious was so-...
Shiroe very deliberately cut that thought off at the knees, and then drowned it. But that didn't stop the blush from rising on his face.
XXX
For the first time in seemingly months, Kirito allowed himself the peace of mind to kind of nudge himself awake an inch at the time, curled up next to his wife.
Asuna looked as beautiful as always, but there was always a certain kind of absentminded wonder when he could wake up to her sleeping face. He knew better than to try and kiss her awake though, because she usually managed to headbutt him in her sleep if he tried.
They still had a lot of things they ought to be doing, and probably a number of things they simply wanted to do on top of that. But right now... this was enough.
Kirito needed to get more used to the sword he'd received from the Bosses that Heathcliff had summoned. He knew that it was a much better sword than the meager thing he'd gotten his hands on after Lisbeth's sword broke against their first charge on Heathcliff, but the weight was a little bit different and he couldn't quite get rid of the feeling that he needed to practice with it.
Asuna needed to decide whether or not she should train her Unique Skill at all. It was a powerful one, and Kirito doubted that anyone would blame her upon hearing about it, but it had been the reward for getting the Last Attack Bonus on Heathcliff. And there was a chance that someone would classify it as Asuna 'inheriting' it from Kayaba.
If it'd been up for a vote, Kirito would've placed his on training, but that was mostly because he didn't like the thought of Asuna not using every skill in her arsenal to keep herself safe. Even if it had once been Heathcliff's own Unique Skill.
From what they could gather, Holy Sword wasn't so much a tank-skill as it was focused around the concept of 'interrupting attacks' rather than 'blocking' or 'dodging'. Things like blinding lights that would cause the enemy to flinch away, leaving them open for a counter-attack from the very same sword that blinded them. If Kirito were to describe it, he'd classify it as a 'dueling'-type Unique Skill, rather than one designed for fighting monsters.
But to train in it or not was an argument for later, and they would probably have to wade through a bunch of completely unrelated political problems before they could really begin to dedicate any of their time to that.
Aincrad was blocking the entry-way into what ought to have been Tokyo Bay, turning it into a lake. And though trade had resumed, it was still awkward for ships to have to unload on one side of the mountain-castle and load the same goods on another ship on the other side. There'd been talk about making a channel of some kind, but it wasn't like anyone really wanted to dedicate themselves to digging a several-kilometers-long trench that was deep enough for ships to pass through. Not without a good reason at least.
There were also rumors that Beast Tamers had managed to grab and tame some pretty impressive monsters since the Transition, monsters belonging to Elder Tales, and that it was entirely possible that they could somehow convince those monsters into doing the actual digging. But there'd have to be a long and complicated discussion about where that channel should be dug, and how it should be used once it was finished.
That was another one of the many disadvantages with becoming a guild-leader. Kirito actually had to keep an eye on those proceedings now, because even if Asuna were to be given the final word on most issues, he didn't want her to work herself into the ground simply because he couldn't convince the Council of Guild's to do what it'd been created for.
He supposed that it had been inevitable for him to become a political figure, considering how his original infamy as a 'Beater' had long since begun tapering off into fame instead. It was probably that damn 74th Floor Bosses that'd done it. Or maybe it'd been more due to any truth there might be to the rumors that he'd heard from Argo about various people whom he'd helped out over the years being very upset at hearing his name 'slandered'.
There was of course the possibility that his infamy had tapered off simply because he happened to be the father of Yui, and how everyone loved her. But whether they adored his daughter or not, Kirito sincerely doubted that something like that would convince them to like him. Even if he had a niggling suspicion that his daughter was secretly a genius who could tug at people's heartstrings and play them like a fiddle.
If it weren't for the fact that he was rejecting those thoughts outright, on behalf of his daughter being the cutest and most innocently wonderful girl there had ever been, Kirito would've been very proud of her for it.
XXX
A/n: Yui is really smart. And the DDA are probably more like trolls than dicks, but everyone's already gotten used to calling them that, so it can't be helped.
And yes, Asuna inherited the Holy Sword, because she was the one who landed the finishing blow on Heathcliff. As for the sword Kirito picked up during that final battle? It's called Durendal, and has a ridiculously high durability.
This is the final chapter. After this, there's an Epilogue along with a few Omakes, all from non-Shiroe/Kirito POVs.