And here we have chapter 4 of The Black Snowstorm :D

Writing the Gin part of it was way too difficult :( The first time I wrote it, it was basically me bashing Gin (I like the character, so that was a no go) and when I rewrote it, it just didn't want to be written or something, it took me three times more time to write that part than normal and I'm still not too happy with it :( and then Mass Effect 1&2 happened and well you can probably guess the rest xD

"xxx" talking

'xxx' thinking

Xxx Report

*story start*

It was the second day that Saizo hadn't shown up for school and already the first rumours were starting to circle around. At the moment those were just in Kirito's own class, but they would probably soon reach the ears of the other students and Kirito wasn't sure what to think about some of them. At first he had thought that the news that Moka defeated Saizo would make the round eventually and the other students would start to treat her normally again.

Well he was wrong on a few points, because, Saizo's defeat was attributed to him and once he tried to correct them and told them that he didn't do it, they just said that he was way too humble and that Moka was really lucky that I would amuse myself with her. That last comment was definitely the wrong thing to tell Kirito, because as soon as he heard it the killing intent that filled the class could only be rivalled by Inner Moka and in turn shut up this part of the rumour, but also increased the other part and soon the rumours of a black-haired first year with immense power would circle around the school.

On the positive side Moka was finally free from most of the whispers after that happened, because nobody wanted to earn the ire of Saizo's defeater and after the display of his killing intent, which was another thing he was SAO thankful for, without the game he would have never been able to display it, it was pretty clear that if you wanted to touch his friends you would have to answer to him.

Another positive thing was that beside his own class, nobody knew what the mysterious black-haired first year looked like and since Kirito didn't look frightening at all nobody would connect those rumours to him, beside his own class, who were still trying to decide how to handle him. On one hand he was nice, normally had a smile on his face and was definitely good looking with slight feminine features, on the other hand was to note that he had defeated Saizo, at least in their mind, and once someone badmouthed Moka in his presence the presence he gave off was enough to let the anonymous decision fall to not get on his or his friends bad side. In the end most of them chose a wait and see approach.

Once the lessons for the day were over it was almost time for the first club meeting of the newspaper club. First the three of them got onto the roof again and just like they said yesterday, Moka had a taste of Mizore's blood. Mizore now definitely knew why Kirito had said that he could get addicted, the feeling was amazing, if it wasn't for the fact that her blood was limited she would have let Moka suck a lot longer and Moka too was quite surprised, while Kirito's blood tasted so good she wasn't even able to describe it, Mizore's was by no means bad, but this time she was able to categorize it to be mint flavoured. After the afterglow for both had vanished they went down to their new club room.

"We are in the right room or are we?" Kirito's question was justified, because at the moment the only students in the club room were Mizore, Moka and himself.

"It's the room Shizuka told us to meet at and above the door was a sign saying 'newspaper club' so I am pretty sure we are at the right room."

"Maybe we are just a little early and the others are still in their classes?" Moka added in an optimistic tone, but was shot down by Mizore, "No, class ended a long time ago and Shizuka told us that the club had only few members."

"But I hope she didn't mean that we are the only members and already included us when she said a few." Before either Mizore or Moka could answer him and speculate further the door was opened and the teacher in question, Shizuka Nekomone, entered the classroom.

"Well then everyone, thanks for joining my Club! So let's begin with the club activities for the Youkai Academy Newspaper Club!" That statement was followed by utter silence which was broken after nearly a full minute by Kirito with the question all the members present were asking themselves at the moment.

"Sensei, are we the only members?"

"Don't be silly …" the door to the class was opened again "… See, here comes the only other member!"

"EXCUSE ME! Man, I'm sorry! Here I am, late on the first club meeting. Greetings, I am the president of the newspaper club, Morioka Ginei. Pleased to meet ya!" While he introduced himself he handed flowers to the two female club members and flirted with them.

Or he tried too, going by their blank looks Kirito was pretty sure that he had failed rather epically and that both Mizore and Moka were still trying to decide how to react to him. Kirito had just decided that he had found the Academies version of his friend Klein. All that was missing was him proclaiming his age and that he was single and it would be a perfect match.

"Ginei will take over from here, I have to attend a staff meeting, see you later everyone and make friends with your sempai!" with that the cheerful form of Shizuka left the classroom and Ginei, after noticing that his flirting was being ignored, told them about the rules of the club which accumulated to a simple description what a newspaper was and that they had to hand in at least one 3000 word article before the next edition got out. Those 3000 words could be split in either many small or one big article.

"So now that the boring stuff about the rules is over let's get something done, Mizore, Moka could you put up our poster add onto the wall." While both girls started putting up the poster, Kirito took a look at it and was pretty sure that either their teacher or the students had a very different idea about promoting something like a newspaper, normally that wouldn't be done with a poster that had a teacher pointing at a newspaper in it, with blood splatters around the newspapers name, which was by the way Gazette, but that didn't really concern him, he just had to write it, since it was the only paper there wasn't much competition about the readers and therefore promoting it was almost unnecessary. 'Yeah, having an absolute monopoly is quite nice.'

"You need to put it up higher." Once Kirito brought his concentration back on what was happening around him he knew that he owed Klein an apology. Klein may be single and desperate and some other things, but at least he never got as low as peeking, which Gin, he told them to call him so, was doing at the moment, looking under both girls shirts while telling them to get the posters higher to get a better view.

'Now that can't be possibly left like that.' "Mizore, Moka mind looking at me for a bit?" Kirito said with the most innocent sounding voice he could muster.

"Sure, why Kiri- GIN WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Gin wasn't fast enough to get away and was now in a very compromising position that showed exactly what he had been doing.

"Ehh… Well… You see… I was just –"

"Peeping at your pants and telling you to raise the posters higher so that I could get a better view." Kirito provided for him.

"Yeah exactly… no wait nooooooo!" and in that moment Kirito knew that girls definitely were the most scary and dangerous creatures in existence and that he preferred soloing a boss over what was just happening to Gin.

After a very severe trashing the four of them decided to look around for a possible scoop, interview people or something else that could be used as an article.

Moka decided that she would write an article about the sealing aspects of different kinds of artefacts and went to the library to research some more controversial means than a classic cross or talisman.

Mizore took a camera and vanished from sight, not that that was something new, but Kirito was still impressed how perfect she could pull of that move.

Kirito decided to write a self-defence guide 'human technics, to defend oneself without the use of monster powers', which could be pretty useful for monsters, considering that some of them had to transform to access their power which would cause problems once they were in the human world.

Gin, in his element took off to interview the students, though those interviews were centred on the female student body and stopped once he got to a girl that knew about Kirito. What he heard was not exactly too his liking.

"You mean that black-haired boy with the beautiful effeminate looks and onyx eyes?"

"Yeah that guy." Gin was not happy with the description but he couldn't begrudge the boy or the turquoise haired girl about it, Kirito was good looking and even though Gin didn't like it, denying it wouldn't change anything, but as far as he had seen Kirito was at least happy with the two girls he already had.

"Hmmm, what I know about him? Why do you want to know about him?"

"I am from the newspaper club and I was thinking about writing an article about how other students see you, I'm not sure when or if it's going to be published, but if it is I already know that you will definitely get the highest possible praise from the others." A little flirting was never wrong, at least in Gin's book.

'If that was his best flirting attempt then he should be really thankful for his looks, a succubus like me won't fall for something like that. Any other girl with some standards probably too if she isn't wooed by his looks' "My thank you ..." His personality wasn't her type but letting her harem grow was definitely not bad, "…, now that I think about it, I don't really know much about him beside his name and that he is always together with those two girls. The pink haired one started to tag along him right after Saizo vanished and some speculate if Kirito maybe had something to do with it, but he doesn't really look like a fighter if you ask me. He's polite and friendly but more of the loner type so that's pretty much everything I or anybody else besides those two girls knows about him." 'Maybe I should look into him a bit; normally I don't oversee guys with his looks. Who knows, maybe he is my chosen one.'

While the turquoise haired girl was making plans about getting Kirito or at least some more information about him she didn't notice the student taking a picture from her, hiding in the trees.

Gin meanwhile was despairing about the low chances he had with either Moka or Mizore, completely ignoring the fact that the girl he had asked went away, which he only noticed once he returned from his thought process and wanted to restart flirting with her, if his club members were out for the moment, that turquoise haired girl looked good too, only to notice that he was alone.

It was unfair, yeah maybe he had the looks and was nice, but why both of them? Going from the looks those two were probably among the top 5 hottest girls of the freshman and after being busted peeking at them and going by what he just heard, his chances were abysmal. This meant he needed to even the odds with Kirito. 'I think he said he was going to his room writing this guide of his.'

The fact that maybe Kirito was just their friend or only interested in one of them never even crossed his mind, maybe it had if he had thought longer about it, but that he certainly did not.

-_-_-(boy's dorm)-_-_-

Kirito was halfway through with his first part of the guide when somebody knocked at his door.

"Would you mind coming with me for a second?"

"Yeah sure."

-_-_-(5 min later)-_-_-

*knock, knock, knock*

"Hey Kirito, open up, it's me Gin and I have something I need to show you." After nothing happened and knocking again brought him the same amount of success he decided that this would have to wait another day and went away, he could as easily go alone and indulge himself in his hobby and if he hurried he would make it to the start of the lesson.

-_-_-(With Kirito)-_-_-

"So for what did you need me?" Kirito asked her.

"There are some rumours I want to investigate and write my first story about, but to check them out I need a second photographer." 'And spending time with you is definitely a perk.' "Oh yeah here is your camera. To zoom you need to pull here, press here to take a picture and if you want to switch the films you need to put your finger here …" Kirito got a slight red ting when she grabbed his hand 'Why am I blushing? Yeah she's beautiful and her porcelain white hands touching and intervening with mine, her body near mine, our faces close together … no, bad Kirito, don't go there, she's just a friend get yourself together.' "… and then it will come out and you can switch the film." To say Mizore was happy with the reaction she caused by Kirito when she took his hands was an understatement. Now she just had to figure out what that meant for her and what her true feelings were for him. She wished everything would go slower, she still had time until she turned seventeen and normally her race took her time with relationships, but going by her pounding heart it would probably go pretty fast.

"Yes right, press there, pull here, ok got it, now where do we investigate?" and Mizore knew in that moment that a flustered Kirito was a cute Kirito, which meant she would have to up her teasing a bit.

The glint in Mizore's eyes caused a shiver to run down Kirito's back and it reminded him a bit too much of Argo when she was about to tease him for some reason or another.

"Yeah right. *cough* When I went around (stalked) I heard some girls talking about a peeping tom and I want to catch him and write my first article about that. Since PE lessons for the second year girls start soon I want you observe the window that's next to the girl's changing room and take a shot from the peeper if he comes. Meanwhile I will be patrolling around the school and other likely places where he could peep at other girls." 'Or I will be observing you a little bit and then go do all that.'

"Aye, Aye" Kirito gave her a mock salute with a grin plastered on his face.

"And after the girls are out, come back and deliver your findings and report to me." She said to him in her best military-officer-voice she could muster without giggling.

"Madam" with a last salute he started going to the woods next to the window he was told to watch.

Mizore was already out of sight when he turned his head just a second later.

Just before Kirito was able to enter the woods and find a hiding place he was interrupted by Gin's voice.

"Hey Kirito, I was looking for you." Gin waved at him, a way to big grin on his face.

"Why? Do you need something?"

'Perfect, I didn't even need to lure him out here. Time for my plan.' "Yeah, I wanted to show you something. Do you see that window there –"

"Yeah, but isn-" Kirito didn't get any further because Gin interrupted him.

"Yes that one, do you mind climbing up there and taking a look into it for me? I just need to confirm something."

"Sempai, do you know what's in there?"

"Yeah, you will be definitely in for an interesting surprise if it turns out as I believe it will." 'Or at least it will be a surprise once those photos circle around the girls.' Grinning Gin readied his camera to catch Kirito once he 'peeped' through the window.

What Gin didn't notice was Mizore hidden in the trees and the signal she was giving Kirito.

After being slightly confused by Mizore, if he understood her right he should go up to the window, he decided he had nothing to lose and that she knew what she was doing, complied too her.

Taking a last look at Gin after accepting the command from his 'officer' and seeing the now ready camera he had a pretty good idea what Gin's plan was and he had to say he was a bit disappointed.

After he had climbed up on the crates, why there were even crates next to the window of the girl's changing room(?), and just before he turned his head to look into the room he heard the click of Mizore's camera and turned his head to a confused looking Gin who was pretty sure that it wasn't him who made that noise.

When Gin finally turned he saw Mizore coming out of the woods, holding in her hands the camera that had made the noise.

"Hello there Mizore-chan, what are you doing here?" Gin didn't like the fact that he was being spied upon. He still hadn't done anything that could be used against him, but still, had she revealed herself a bit later she would have probably uncovered his plan.

Instead of answering him Mizore once again raised her camera and made a picture of him.

"You don't have to be shy, instead of just taking a picture of me we could spend some time together and edge ourselves into the memory of the other, what do you think." To Gin's bad luck he didn't notice that Kirito had taken the pictures he had put into his pocket and was now holding them next to Gin's head.

-_-_-(next day)-_-_-

It was just the fourth day and the third Kirito had doubled his training to regain his physical prowess, but going by the aching of his every muscle he knew that his training was effective and hard and taxing and straining and cruel, oh had he mentioned it was hard. He had problems moving because everything hurt, but was happy about two particular things. First, even though his training was hard his chest wound hadn't opened up again, he really had to thank the doc for that, whatever he used, his wound had healed faster than the doc had told him and secondly, if he could keep this training up it would probably only take one or two months to bring him back into shape.

Aside from his aching body the morning was slowly falling into a routine. He stood up, washed, ate a little bit and once outside met up with his two friends Mizore and Moka. Today this establishing routine was getting an addition in the form of club work, because they were handing out their newspaper to the other students.

It was their first one and they were really proud of it. It was still a small newspaper with just four articles, one about the newspaper in general and an introduction of the staff, one about self-defence human style from Kazuto Kirigaya, one about sealing talismans from Moka Akashiya and the final one that also made the headline and was the main reason why the newspaper was practically ripped out of their hands:

!Peeping Tom apprehended while he was trying to blame somebody else!

from Mizore Shirayuki and Kazuto Kirigaya

That particular article was also the reason why the newspaper club president was being chased a lot of females at the moment, screaming blood and murder.

"And do you guys think Gin learned his lesson after they are through with him?" Kirito asked his two friends.

"He doesn't seem like the type to learn from his mistakes." Mizore stated, satisfied that her article was such a hit.

"I don't like perverts." Even though Moka stated that without raising the volume of her voice Gin somehow heard it and froze stiff for a moment. As it turned out it was a moment to long, because now his pursuer's caught up to him and started to show him why it was a bad idea to peep with very concrete (baseball bats, et cetera) arguments.

The rest of the day went by like every other one, beside the fact that Kirito felt himself be starred at by one of his female classmates.

When classes finished he went to the infirmary to get his stitches out. It was sooner than the doc had told him, but as far as he could see he was healed, or at least to such a degree that he deemed the stitches unnecessary.

Before he got to the doc he saw the girl again that had starred at him during the lessons, but now she was ignoring him, looking stressed and he noticed that she had a crumbled, picture, piece of paper or something similar in her hand, but he could further think about it she left through the entrance and he remembered that he had to pay a doctor a visit.

"It's impressive that you healed so fast, does your monster form excel in that department?" The doctor was really intrigued by this student, even though they were monsters it should have still taken him longer to heal the wound to such a degree that he really didn't need the stitches anymore. A pity that a normal doctor couldn't determine what type of monster he was as long as he stayed in his human form.

"Not that I know of, I thought that maybe the ointments you used caused that effect."

"That shouldn't be possible, because of an error we only have medicine that excels at healing genuine humans at the moment. They also work for monster but can't possible cause such an effect. Hmmm." The doc scratched his chin in though, thankfully ignoring the nervous look that flashed over Kirito's face, only to be replaced seconds later with the best poker face he could muster.

"It could be possible if you were a monster with ties to the human race like the witches." The doctor mused and after Kirito asked for more details, which earned him a look from the doctor that screamed, 'why don't you know something like that?', but in the end he was told about the race that resides on both sides, monster and human one, but is despised by both, monsters calling them humans and humans calling them monsters.

"But isn't that a waste? They could act as mediators between both groups." Kirito had a pretty good idea why that didn't happen, but getting attention of his own case was more important than looking a bit naïve, because he knew that humans didn't accept them because humanity as a whole feared the mysterious and the general approach to something they didn't understand was to destroy it, single humans may be okay with them, but humanity as a whole not and the distaste some monsters had against humans he had learnt first-hand, Saizo was a great example for that and even if they weren't the majority, as long as they yelled the loudest witches would have definitely problems with monsters because of their human parts too.

And as the doc gave his answer, he just confirmed his thoughts, because he listed the same things Kirito had just thought about.

"So that's the last of the stitches, another one two days and nothing beside a little scar will be left." While they had discussed the witches the doc had proceeded to pull out the stitches and when they finally finished it Kirito was ready to leave.

"Thanks again and sorry for the trouble."

"Don't worry, just take care, I'm pretty good, but even I won't be able to patch you up if you're a corpse."

"Yeah I will try to keep it down to flesh wounds." With that Kirito left.

"I really like the boy, nice work of the director to transfer him in."

"Flattering me will bring you nowhere, but continue, it's still pleasant."

"Well he certainly is interesting for what he is and for keeping his identity I would say my dept to you is payed?"

"Yeah, we're even, but you will still continue to work here right? Would be a petty if I needed to find a new doc."

"Don't worry, it's way too interesting at the moment to just leave, beside my brother would certainly be unhappy if I just up and left, leaving him alone to drive the students around."

"Good." And with that the doc was alone again.

-_-_-(Meanwhile with Kirito, outside in the woods, running to increase his stamina)-_-_-

After the visit to the doctor Kirito went to his dorm room and switched into his gym clothes to continue his training, which he would start with running. That would increase his stamina and being fast while either charging an enemy or tactically retreating from one was definitely not a bad thing in his book.

Since he still wasn't too familiar with the surroundings of the school it would also help him to learn of those and who knows, maybe he would find a hidden dungeon. 'Yeah right, as if that would happen in real life… in a monster school … in a different dimension … hidden from the rest of the world … why do I have the feeling that I just jinxed myself?' Kirito sighed, he just knew that someday something would happen and he would have to go into a dungeon that was on the school, it just wasn't possible that fate and the world wouldn't do something to make it happen, after he had thought about it like that. At least he wouldn't be bored.

While he ran he noticed another problem that had developed itself in the last few days. He had only one school uniform left! The first one had a bloody cut from Saizo, the second one didn't have the cut, but the blood on the same place as the first uniform. If anything happened to his last uniform he would probably have to go to school in his normal clothes. Well he liked the colour black anyway a lot more than his current school uniform and if he was going to destroy two or more school uniforms per week it would probably be better if he just used his normal clothes, going by what he had seen some more eccentric students wearing he shouldn't get into any trouble for it.

During his contemplation about his clothes Kirito had further followed the path he had randomly chosen and now could see a small cottage in the distance. That wouldn't have been very surprising, seeing as the dimension or whatever he was in was rather big, it would have been more weird if the school buildings were the only structures in it, but what caught Kirito's attention wasn't the fact that there was a building on his path, nor how the cot looked, instead the slimy something that was slowly squishing itself through the door was what had caught his eye. He upped his tempo and cursed again about the fact that he had no swords, because the possibility that whatever was happening in front of him would develop in a situation that would cause him to fight was rather high.

-_-_-(Kurumu)-_-_-

Kurumu's day had gone from nice to nightmare. The day was nice when she had researched about her latest interest, namely the black haired bay that was sitting diagonally in front of her and she was, after looking into him a bit, really contemplating adding him into her harem, possible even as her special one, he was strong going by the rumours at least, good looking, the feminine part just improved his looks and as far as she had seen from what little interaction he had with the rest of the class he was also nice. A problem could be that he was always together with those other two girls, but she wasn't a succubus for nothing and really liked a challenge.

That was when the day was still nice and wonderful for her. Then she found a love letter. That would have been nothing too surprising; she had made to quite a lot of boys suggestive gestures and had even managed to get her own fan club after just two days. What had made the day a nightmare was the content of the letter. Next to map which told her how to get to the cot she was now in, there were a lot of photos of her in every possible situation, ranging from her sleeping in her bed, changing clothes, hell there was even one when that sempai had asked her about Kirito.

When she arrived at the cot she met Kanou. He was sitting on a branch of a tree, sweating, at least she believed that he was sweating, and after introducing himself as Kanou Nagare he had asked her if she remembered him. Which she definitely did not. He was one of the many she had swooned to add to her harem, but as it turned out that was quite a big mistake on her part. He stalked her and got jealous of all the other boys she talked to and after he had accumulated enough pictures his genius plan was to blackmail her into cosplaying for him to take more pictures and to cut off all connections to the other boys.

The first part was probably because of a fetish he had, yeah that monster was definitely a pervert, and the costumes would probably get a lot worse than the first one he had suggested, which was a maid outfit and Kurumu was definitely not stupid enough to let him get more leverage on her so she flat out refused him to be his little dress-up doll.

As she found out that course of action too wasn't too great, since after hearing her refusal he changed into his monster form and even though she found his human form repelling, his monster form disgusted her to no end. He was some kind of slug monster and looked like he came straight out of a Bollywood horror movie or a nightmare of an overenthusiastic housewife.

She had been disgusted but not too worried, he was a slug what could he possibly do to her; a strong succubus with the ability to fly and lengthen her nails to such an amount that she could slice through trees without any problem?

That was answered when Kurumu's body was left by its strength and with the last ounces of it she fled into the cot, closing and blocking the door, while hearing Kanou talking about how great it was to be a Madslug and how his body was constantly releasing a paralyzing gas when he wasn't in his human form.

And while she had reminisced why her day had turned into a nightmare she was made aware of another very problematic aspect of a slug monster.

"Kurumu-chan, it's nice isn't it? My body can slip through the tiniest cracks since I'm a slug monster, but you probably already figured that out right? You are an intelligent girl so you should already know that, right? But then again you always flirt with the other boys so you are probably very naïve, right? You should know that they are just going to use you, right? But don't worry, I'm going to save you from them and then we can keep doing photo shootings with you as my sole model, you are grateful for that, right? And after the shootings we can do some things that will turn you into a real woman, right? I will use you too, but at least I will take good care of you KURUMU-CHAN!"

'N-No! I don't have any energy left in my body! What should I do? I don't want to end up with him! I still haven't found my destined one and now that monster is going to defile my body! Nooo! I-I don't want too! Why isn't anybody helping me? What good is a harem of boys if they aren't there when I need them? I charmed them into mindless drones and now that I would need one to save me nobody's here. Great! Just great, I don't even have enough power left to use charm on that slug to save my body from him and all because I wanted to have the entire male school body to be in my harem. How stupid am I? I wanted to find my chosen one, my love and while charming the first years I don't even have one person that cares about me for real and that would worry about where I am at the moment and save me. Really it's great! I have to be almost raped to realize that charming the boys is not the way to get her destined one. How should she even find him in the sea of mindless boys that she created?'

"Oh? You have gone all silent, have you maybe accepted the fact that you won't be getting away from me? Since this is such a special occasion maybe we should postpone the photo shooting and start with making you into a woman? You have nothing against that, right? Not that you could do anything against me now that your body was exposed to my gas for so long, you can't even talk anymore, right?"

To Kurumu's despair he was right and was now coming towards her, inching closer with his disgusting slimy body, stretching out his hand towards her body, making her close her eyes in fear of what was about to happen while tears started to appear on her face. She wished that she was on a place very far away, not in a cot with a slimy slug-rapist that would soon do things to her that she didn't want to/couldn't imagine, her brain just didn't let her, holding onto the slim hope that somebody, anybody would come save her, but that shimmer of hope was getting smaller and smaller as Kanou got closer and closer to her, his slime already dropping on her body ruining her uniform and dissolving it, robbing her of her last weak defence that her clothes were.

Just a few more seconds and she would feel his hands on her body, violating it, disgracing her and defiling her, even if her eyes were closed, her mind showed her everything bad that would happen once Kanou finally got his disgusting hands on her only for her to realize that those dreaded seconds stretched longer and longer and after realizing that he still hadn't laid a hand on her she pried open one of her eyes, only to see the back of Kanou turned to her.

It took her mind some time to realize that the reason why Kanou had turned his attention away from her was because of one black haired boy who had opened the door to the cot and subsequently saved her that way. Her almost extinguished shimmer of hope had turned true and somebody had come to save her! She didn't know who, beside the black hair she couldn't see anything from the boy because Kanou's body was blocking her view and as weak as she was now she had no way to move to another position to take a look at him, but whoever it was he had her undying gratitude, not only for getting Kanou's attention away from her, but also because he was luring him away with taunts. And once she saw Kanou's body vanish behind the cot's door she decided that her way of doing things was wrong and whoever saved her, she would try to win his heart over the good old way.

Kirito was angry. No, he wasn't angry, he was furious. Once he had opened the door he had seen a huge slug like monster trying to rape, of that he was sure going by the almost completely destroyed clothes, a completely defenceless and afraid girl.

His first reaction had been to grab a pole that was right next to the door and slam it with as much power as he could muster into the body of that monster.

That hit would have probably broken some bones, monster or not, if Kirito's target had any to begin with, which Kanou didn't. All that attack did was get Kanou's attention away from the girl and instead he had turned around and was now looking at Kirito who, thanks to encountering monsters with similar effects in SAO, realized that his body was giving something off that weakened his body.

His mind was just registering that fact, when his body had already moved away from the monster, into a distance were he believed himself to be relatively save from the ability of the monster.

"Who the hell are you?" Kanou was very irritated that someone had interrupted him, when everything was working out so perfectly.

"Doesn't really matter, but what the fuck do you think you are doing to that girl?!" Oh yeah, Kirito was more than furious, after Moka he had found another girl that was almost raped and hell would freeze over before he would something like that knowingly happen.

"What do you think? Kurumu-chan and I were about to do things you can only dream about."

Kirito wanted to jump on him with his swords drawn and show him exactly what he thought about it, but that wasn't possible since he still had no swords with him, blunt damage was ineffective against the Madslug in front of him and if he got too close he would probably end up the same way as the poor girl in the cot.

He was just a few seconds next to Kanou when he had hit him, but he could already notice that his body only reacted sluggishly and that he had only one chance to save the girl.

The fact that the wind was picking up improved the situation a bit for Kirito, since the wind would weaken the effect of the paralyzing gas that Kanou was giving off and even the field out, even if it was just a little bit.

"Well I think that some genetic slug experiment gone wrong was just about to rape one of my classmates!? Do you think I would let something like that happen, you oversized slime ball?!" Oh how Kirito wished that he wasn't so weak or weapon less. It took a lot of him to control his white hot furry and not jump at the bastard, but as he was now he had no chance and so he did the next best thing he could think of in his anger induced state; he would lure him away and then somehow defeat him. But most importantly, bring him away from his victim.

"Nobody calls me a slime ball! And how dare you interrupt me just to ridicule me and stop me from Kurumu!" He definitely had his attention now; all that was left to do was luring him away and making him pay.

"Just be happy that I haven't pulled out the saltcellar to deal with you yet!" Maybe it was some ingrained natural instinct of his species, but once Kirito uttered that Kanou came barrelling towards Kirito, screaming blood and murder and how he would first do that and that to him and later come back to finish what he started with Kurumu.

"Heh, what's wrong slime ball? Can't keep up with me? I'm not even trying!" Sadly that was a lie, Kirito was only slightly faster than the gigantic slug that was chasing him, mainly because he was already affected by the gas, and Kirito was still missing an idea on how to defeat the monster.

"Big words from someone who's only running away."

"Sorry, but you smell so bad that every garbage dump would be a perfume channel No 5 compared to you!"

Kirito's had calmed down his anger to manageable levels, but he was still searching for something that he could use to turn the situation into his favour. That was when he saw it.

"Hoh, finally stopped running, what's wrong, are you feeling weak? Does your body no longer listen to yourself?"

"As if you sick fuck!" Kirito let a branch from a tree slam into Kanou and that bought him some precious seconds in which Kanou didn't see him. Beside delaying Kanou the branch didn't do much else, a body immune to blunt damage was definitely a problem if you had no sharp weapons and were a human.

"Keep talking as long as you still can, but I am going to kill you now!" Kanou was now really anticipating the moment he could kill his interrupter and return to his Mizore.

What Kanou didn't see was that Kirito had gotten a sword from one of the graves and that he was just waiting for him to come closer so that he could deliver one hopefully finishing blow with the old sword he was hiding behind his body.

The sword was rusted and dull and he himself was already feeling the effects of Kanou's gas were getting stronger and stronger, but he had to make it.

With a cry that the most powerful warriors could be proud of Kirito thrust the old sword forward, straight into the centre of the slug-monster's body, using every ounce of strength he had left and to his relieve it worked.

The sword was dull and he had known that he probably couldn't cut the slug with it, not to mention that he hadn't enough strength left for more than one attack and he sincerely doubted that he could defeat the monster with just one attack, so he had positioned himself in a way guaranteed that Kanou would be behind a grave. Better said the grave from which he had gotten the sword and he had noticed another thing about it. The cover was fragile and his sword thrust was enough to make Kanou stagger back and fall onto aforementioned cover, crashing through it and falling into it.

"Take that asshole!" Kirito said exhausted but triumphantly as he staggered away from the grave and back to the cot, he had to see if the girl was ok or not and if he could help her.

When the door was opened Kurumu was panicking again until she saw the black haired boy who had saved her.

"Are you ok? No that was a stupid question, sorry, you're definitely not." Pulling off his track suit jacket and handing it to her he continued, "here take that for the moment and let's get away from here. I have some friends who can probably help you better than me."

"O… Okay and thank you." Kurumu was slowly regaining her strength and was about to disagree with the boy, he had helped her better than anybody else ever could when both of them got out of the cot, only to see an enraged Kanou in front of them.

"Shit, the gas. Couldn't you just stay in that grave for another five minutes?" The effect had lessened over time, but being near him again drained them again.

"Did you think you could get away?! And did you think a little fall could hurt my body?! But don't worry, I am going to show you how to deal with somebody permanently!" Kirito had positioned himself in front of Kurumu again, but couldn't do much more, any longer and he would probably fall over, the gas that the slug was emitting was just way to unfair. He could see Kanou's fist descending upon him, dripping with a probably acid slime 'Now that definitely sucks, offed in the same way Saizo almost did me in, just this time I will be molten instead of crushed' and too Kirito's absolute amazement the punch again stopped moments before it reached him, like Saizo's fist back than Kanou was encased in ice, but different to Saizo Kanou couldn't break out and his entire body was encased in it.

Coming out behind one of the trees was Mizore, a concerned look on her face as she sped towards Kirito who had fallen to the ground and asking him, "Are you injured somewhere? Sorry that I wasn't faster, it took me some time to find you after you left from the infirmary."

Kirito didn't even think about pointing out her stalking habits, he was just glad that she was there when she was and that his friend cared so much about him. "Don't worry; you made it just in the nick of time. The girl and I are just a bit weak from the gas that monster was emitting through its body."

"That's a relief, who is she by the way? I just saw that the monster was about to attack you, what happened?" The concern in Mizore's eyes spoke volumes about how much she worried about him and it made Kirito genially happy that she cared so much about him.

"Well you see… I kind of got into another fight again…" Kirito stated sheepishly, only to get a deadpanned stare from Mizore who, after reassuring herself that he was physically okay, said in a tone that matched her momentarily expression perfectly, "Oh you don't say?"

"Yeah, but I had perfectly valid reason for it." His eyes travelled to Kurumu and now finally Mizore took a better look at the other person who was with Kirito and she finally noticed the state she was in, tears on her face, her modesty only saved by a piece of cloth from Kirito, pale as a sheet, she looked terrible and Mizore was reminded of what had happened to her second friend she had made.

"Yeah, that's true, …"shifting her attention to the girl she asked, "… do you have any injuries?" At the shake of the head from the girl Mizore felt relieved, she didn't exactly know her, but nobody should have to go through what must had happened to her going by her state and she resolved herself to help her as good as she could. "We should still go to the infirmary, who knows what other effects that gas could have had on you two. Kirito, can you move again? Caring both of you could be a bit problematic." She could make some ice clones to help her, but that had the disadvantage that both of them would be rather cold and that definitely wouldn't improve their condition.

The way to the infirmary was quiet and once they finally reached it after half an hour Kirito was almost back to normal again and Kurumu could move on her own again.

"Thank you for helping me you two. I don't even want to imagine what could have happened if either of you came just a few seconds later." A slight shiver was running over her body, but before she could continue her dark track of thoughts Kirito interrupted her and pulled her back into reality.

"But we didn't come too late and now you are safe. And we will make sure that nothing happens to you again, right Mizore." He was giving her a winning smile and after Mizore confirmed his promise and that statement helped Kurumu a lot more than both of them could imagine. That promise was probably also the reason why she wouldn't have any nightmares after she was released from the infirmary and headed to her room.

Kirito himself went into his room, the effect of the gas was gone, but he was still winded and soon fell into a slumber, while Mizore was watching him through the window, slightly blushing at his cute form and still feeling amazed on how much he resembled a girl while he was lying there. During the day she noticed his effeminate looks too, but they seemed to increase once he slept and as she looked at him she got a pretty big urge to use him as something similar to a dress-up doll. It would be really interesting to see him in different outfits.

And so another crazy day ended. The next day, Saturday, the first weekend in his new school, Kurumu would greet the three of them and spend a lot of time with both of the girls talking about what happened to her, Moka's first reaction when she heard about it was to embrace her in a big hug and the three of them were fast friends. Her relationship to Kirito was you could say complicated. Her first statement when she saw him was "Morning Kirito! Do you want some of the cookies I baked?" she said that with the biggest smile he had seen on her while holding a plate of cookies. That wouldn't have been problematic, but her continuation of her speech made up for that, "You must know as a succubus I need to find my destined one to love and that was why I charmed a lot of boys but now I know, that was the wrong action to take. I can't charm them into loving me, that uses no one and won't make anyone happy, so I decided, Kirito you are my destined one and I will get you." For a moment he could feel killing intent coming from his right, but that couldn't be, nobody beside Mizore was right from him.

The problem Kirito had with Kurumu's declaration was that he wasn't interested in her that way and that he wasn't sure why but whenever he thought about love a certain purple haired girl came to his mind and as long as he wasn't sure about his feelings he couldn't accept her so he managed to compromise with her that both of them would be friends. How he managed that without hurting her feelings baffled him like nothing else.

The four of them spent the entire day together and at the end of the day Kurumu had decided to join them in the newspaper club, since she still wasn't in any club and she wanted to spend her time with her friends. The headline of the next issue was already decided, it would focus on the attack on Kurumu and about self-defence tricks for girls against guys, Kirito just couldn't do nothing when it only took five days for two girls to be almost raped and with what he and the others wrote in the newspaper he felt that it would help at least a bit, he just couldn't be everywhere at once, not to forget that he was a human, so the girls had to defend themselves, which shouldn't be too hard since they themselves were monsters so they should be able to fight back at least.

AN:

This took way too long to write :(

As I said above, writing the Gin part was hard and sorry that there was still no real fighting, but Kirito is just not strong enough to fight them yet, he is still recovering and doesn't have any weapon with him, so I can't really let him defeat someone in a straight forward way with no help or some tricks.

I hope I didn't screw up Kurumu's reaction to being saved, her interactions and most importantly could convey why she wants to be with Kirito.

And something to celebrate: LONGETS CHAPTER YET: ~8950 words !?

If you have questions, compliments or something else to say please leave a review and just saying, as ever, this was not beta-ed and if you find a part that makes no sense, please tell me, I wrote quite a lot at 2am and my brain isn't working perfectly around that time of the day.

HOPE YOU ENJOYED IT :D

*SPOILER ALERT*

Just one more chapter and after that Kirito will get his powers/weapons and finally kick some ass again ;D If you want you can guess how he gets them, I already have something in mind, but maybe I can refine my idea with one of yours or if find a complete new approach :D

Disclaimer: I own nothing beside my own plot changes, ideas, those are mine, MINE *crazy evil laughter*

Edit: genious 7 noticed that I wrote Mizore instead of Kurumu, has been corrected, thx a lot :D