And here we have chapter 5 of The Black Snowstorm :D
"xxx" talking
'xxx' thinking
Xxx Report
*story start*
After the first week school life had settled itself into a routine for Kirito. He got up, made himself ready for school, met his three friends outside of the dormitories, they went to school together, sometimes discussing something, more often than not Kurumu would fight with Moka and Mizore about Kirito other chatting about what they were going to write next for their newspaper and so on.
Their newspaper was pretty popular with the school and they had to triple the amount of papers printed to meet the demand from the student body. Gin, their club president also improved himself, he was still a pervert, but at least he stopped his activities as peeping tom and was now mostly concentrating on Moka, Mizore and Kurumu, but because of that he more often than not ended up being beaten to a pulp. Now Kirito could him almost compare to Klein, Gin was just more of a pervert, but still a good friend.
Kirito himself had, thanks to his continuous training finally improved his body enough that he could move it in the way he wanted to and now stood a relatively good chance against some of the weaker monsters weapons less and if he had a sword or a pole or something similar he could probably take on a monster in Saizo's class. He wouldn't be able to beat him in the strength department, but he was at least as fast as Saizo had been and that coupled with his reaction speed would probably make it impossible for someone like Saizo to hit him if he concentrated.
And that was also one of the sore spots Kirito still had. He had no weapon, since it was a school, running around with a sword was out and without out it even if a monster like Saizo couldn't hit him, he himself couldn't deal out enough damage to defeat his opponent, all he could do is stall them and wait for one of his friends to deliver the finishing blow, which was depressing, not because he had to rely on a girl but because he himself wasn't able to do it and he would be screwed if his friends weren't with him or for one reason or another not able to help him.
On the positive side Kirito was pretty good in his subjects. Moka and he were at the top of their class and another good thing that happened was that the degrading rumours about Moka had finally stopped. His own were still circulating around, but nobody was talking bad about Moka anymore and he didn't really care about the fact that rumours were told about him.
And Kirito finally managed to pursue his hobby again. He had really missed doing it, but because of what happened in the first week and his training, school, friends and club activities he could only start with it when the third week was almost over again, but after that it got better. Now he could finally do it again and he was genially happy about it. He could finally nap again. And the roof was the perfect place for it.
But he wasn't alone up there. After a few days were he had vanished to pursue his hobby Mizore had found him, or followed him onto the roof, just a matter of interpretation and now he would find her often next to him when he woke up from his nap again, sitting there and drawing something. Sometimes him, sometimes the surroundings and sometimes something from her memories and after afterwards Kirito would often marvel over her pictures, they just looked way too good. He was a little concerned about the fact that some of the pictures had girls in them that remarkably resembled him but that couldn't be true, right?
All in all life was good, he wasn't stressed, his friends were doing well and he was finally back in action physical wise.
"Morning guys!" Kirito called out to his friends who were waiting for him in front of the dormitory.
"Morning Kirito/Hope you slept well/Morning" He was greeted back by the three girls, immediately followed by something that had helped keeping his reflexes up and refining them to an unbelievable amount; Kurumu's show of affection, namely her smothering him in her breasts. After almost dying of suffocation thrice he had learned to evade her and so he stepped out of the way in the last possible moment and stretching out his hand, he caught Kurumu before she could fall because she had overstretched herself when she missed him.
"Not bad Kirito/I would give that around 8/10 points." Moka and Mizore commented, it was nothing new and part of their daily routine, as well as meeting up on the roof so Moka could suck the blood of one of them, she still preferred Kirito's, but Mizore's mint flavoured and the newly added blood from Kurumu tasted like cherries were by no means not appreciated and every time Moka did suck blood she was reminded of the fact how well everything had turned out. She had friends who accepted her for what she was and even let her suck some of their blood.
They had walked to school when Kirito noticed the crowed in front of one of the signboards, "Do you know why they're all standing there?"
"That's a pretty good question Kirito." Kurumu thought about it for a bit, but nothing really came to mind, but she also didn't really listen to what the teachers were saying and announcing sometimes.
"Maybe the final results for the midterm tests were posted, it should have already been enough time for the teachers to correct them." And as they got closer to the crowed Moka was proven true. They still couldn't see the signboards, but by the shouts and cries of either joy or desperation by the students in the crowds it was pretty oblivious what this all was about.
"Do you guys wanna go look at it later or are we going to fight a way through the masses?" Even though Kirito asked that he already knew the answer to that question, because who didn't want to know how he did on something when the results were there and everybody would be talking about it once they got to class and then it would be pretty annoying to not know it, because of the others who knew and would probably start to tease you about it. And there was that one inner desire known as curiosity which would stir if they didn't go look at the results now and wouldn't leave you alone until you knew it.
And he was proven right by the three affirmative answers he got to his question.
After a bit of shoving and pushing the four friends reached the sign with the results and to the surprise of the group they had at least one in every section. Moka with rank 13th and Kirito with rank 15th were at the top of their class, Mizore was in the upper middle and ranked 95th and Kurumu was one of the dead last in class and only barely made it in the 200 with rank 194th.
"Maybe we should tutor Kurumu? What do you think Moka, if she keeps that up she is probably going to flunk this year."
"Yeah, looks like she isn't the brightest in the study department." Mizore added her two cents, only to continue, "maybe I should study too, what do you think about it Kirito? You teach me and Moka teaches Kurumu?"
"If you want to Mizore/I don't really care who I teach so sure, no problem." Moka and Kirito answered her.
"Guys, don't talk like I'm not there, that's not nice and besides who needs good grades, I'm going to be the perfect housewife for Kirito, so who cares about my grades." With that stated she started to launch herself at Kirito to suffocate- show him her affection, only to be evaded at the last moment.
"Mou, since your body's back to normal you always evade me, it was way more fun at the beginning." Kurumu pouted.
"Yeah, I'm finally in working condition again, oh yeah, by the way Moka I think I'm ready to take your other self up on the offer to train me now."
"Are you sure? She's really strong and since you are what you are, you probably won't stand a chance." A second later Moka realised that she basically called him weak and was trying to correct her statement to something not hurtful only to be saved from the embarrassment by none other than Kirito with a smile on his face.
"Yeah I know that I don't stand a chance against her power, but if she holds back and it's solely about skill I believe I should be a pretty nice match for her. And besides, if I don't start to train my skills and speed against her now who knows if I'm able to rescue the next damsel in distress?" Even though the last part was meant as a joke, the girls did not have laughter on their faces, but instead reprimanded him for fighting too much even though he was human and that he should let them do the fighting part. He countered with what he should do if no one of them was there, but that was shot down pretty fast with other arguments. That friendly banter continued until they finally reached their class and entered it just seconds before the school clock could be heard.
Or that would have happened if the world, fate, god or whoever decided that once Kirito jinxed something it had to happen. So instead of banter after Kirito had countered, Moka was seen dashing to a little girl with a witch hat and protecting her against a rough looking freshman and his two handymen.
"STOP!" Moka positioned herself between the girl and the offender, which not only caused the offender to stop in his tracks but also got her the attention of quite a lot students that were still gathered around the area.
"I am sorry I don't have anything to do with this, but I can't let this go! Please stop using violence against girls!" Due to the fact that Moka was in front of the girl she did not see her shocked expression and the blush that shortly followed and painted the girl's cheeks pink.
"Get out of our way –" that was as far as the offender got, before Kirito reached Moka and interrupted him.
"Are you sure you wanna continue this? In front of all the students here?" And true to his words, they now had the attention of all the students gathered.
"Hey, look!" "Moka came to stop him from bullying her!? No way!" "Who's the pretty boy next to her?" … That were just some of the comments being heard now that Kirito had brought the offenders attention to it.
Aforementioned offender now finally realized that he could do exactly nothing because there were too many spectators now. "Tssk, let's go guys! You had better remember this, Yukari!" He snarled and left with his two goons in tow.
"OH, thank you sooooo much, you really saved me! My name is Sendou Yukari!" They still had some time until lessons started, so the now five of them decided to head towards the outdoor lunch area of the school and seated themselves at one of the tables. Normally that area would be packed with students, but it being the morning and with the test results posted they were the only ones there.
"I heard that even though you are in the same grade as us, you're only 11? And even the first ranked in the exams?" At Yukari's nod Moka continued in slight awe, "You're really smart, aren't you Yukari? And your outfit is also really cool."
That last thing Moka had said had an effect on Yukari that Kirito would have never guessed. She was turned into a red stuttering and fluttering mess, that after some failed attempts at communication lowered her head slightly so that the four of them couldn't see her face and continued her communication attempts now more successful with an embarrassed voice: "You're the one who's cool and pretty and sweet, Moka. You know, actually, I … I…"
Kirito to this day liked to say that he was almost always to at least some degree prepared for a situation. Let it be known, Yukari's statement was something he wasn't prepared for in a hundred years. It was impulsive and completely out of the blue.
"… I LOVE you Moka!" Yukari exclaimed, jumping at Moka and hugging her.
The reactions to the confession varied, but were mostly the same: shock, open mouths and surprise.
"Every time I saw you in the classroom across the hall, I fell a bit more for you. But after you saved me, my heart was made up!" Yukari's blush had grown and Moka was still trying to find out what to do with the situation, when she was assaulted by the eyes of an eleven year old, filled with uncertainty, hope, happiness, pleading and many more emotions, it could also have been described as the look a puppy would give a potential owner in the vet.
"Please go out with me! Is that so bad, dating someone like me?" Moka was definitely not knowing how to handle the situation and decided to use the generally accepted plan B everyone could retreat to if they were faced with a confession and didn't know what to do.
"Err… umm, as a friend …" normally that would have discouraged the one giving the confession, but that was not the case with Yukari.
"YAAAAY! I'M SOOOOO HAPPY!" exclaiming that she buried herself in Moka's bosom, causing Moka to let out a girly yelp.
And the entire day Moka was being assaulted by her/their new friend, said assault being concentrated on her two womanly assets and being accompanied by compliments to aforementioned assets.
"You know Yukari, you liking Moka is one thing, but I kind of think you are bothering her a bit if you are groping her the entire time." Kirito decided on the diplomatic approach, not that he believed any other would have brought him any better chance of success.
The reaction he got was not exactly what he had expected, but he had a feeling that it would be the one he would get.
"Please don't get I our way! I know all about you." At the challenging raised eyebrow from Kirito she continued.
"Kazuto Kirigaya, nicknamed Kirito by his friends.
Grades: in the top 15
Ability: Average like a human
No special ability
Girly looks that make you quite popular
I know exactly what you are and why you are with Moka, but I will save her, just as she has saved me! You are the classic pretty boy Casanova and are just her friend to sway her and dump her after a week! But I love her and will not let a low live like you hurt her feelings!" She pulled out her wand, 'Well now I know for sure that she's a witch. The hat could have been cosplay, but that wand looks real and the chance to find a cosplaying eleven year old girl in a monster school is definitely lower than finding a real magic girl/witch in a monster school, especially considering that witches were a hated race, no monster would probably want to cosplay as them.' And wanted to continue, only to be interrupted by Moka:
"Yukari!" mentioned person froze up once she heard Moka, "Kirito is not some Casanova! He is my first friend and a really nice person. He protected me and he definitely would not use me just to dump me! Apologize to him." That was followed by stunned silence. Moka just was not the person to give such speeches, or at least her friends believed her to be, because Kirito was not the only person that treasured his friends greatly and would go to hell heaven and back to protect them. Moka had the exact same mentality, she just hadn't had the opportunity to show it until now and as much as she liked Yukari, she would not let her insult her friend without consequences.
"But… but… I thought I finally found someone who understood me! Nobody likes me …
…
…
I don't need ANYBODY!" she waved her wand and summoned some cleaning utensils to stall the four in front of her to make a quick getaway. It took them around five minutes to defeat the brooms and other things and once they finally finished Yukari was nowhere to be seen.
…
…
…
…
…
"Do you think it was wrong of me to say that to her?" Moka asked uncertainly, she had been angry at Yukari for insulting Kirito, but she thought the little girl would just apologize and then they would be friends again.
"No, you weren't wrong, she overreacted to what you told her." Kirito said to Moka.
"Yeah, that was not your fault/She had it coming for insulting our Kirito." Mizore and Kurumu chirped in, all three of them reassuring the pink haired vampire.
That helped Moka a bit, but everyone could still very clearly see the guilt on her face and once she finally asked the question Kirito, Mizore and Kurumu already knew what she wanted.
"Would you guys help me search for her?"
And she got her answer as soon as she had finished with the last letter of her question. "Sure."
'Coming to this school was definitely the right decision, I finally have not only one but three real great friends.' Moka thought while running with the others in the direction they guessed Yukari would be.
-_-_-(With our witch)-_-_-
'Who needs friends anyway? I'm perfectly fine on my own, that way nobody will be able to betray me. That's right, a genius doesn't need any friends. I don't need them. Who cares if some of them hate me, who cares if I'm alone?! I was always alone, why should that change? … and why won't the tears stop?' Yukari didn't even notice where she was running too, her entire attention in her thoughts about Moka and all the other people that she wanted to be friends with or who have hurt her and who she in return played a prank to.
So it was no wonder that the poor little witch never noticed that she had left the school building pushing several students out of the way and was now running into the forest that surrounded the Academy and neared a little pond.
She almost ran into the pond, stopping only a few centimetres in front of it and finally breaking down she let her tears flow without caring that she had told herself that she would be strong and that big girls didn't cry. She cried about being bullied, about being harassed, about being unable to find friends and that she herself often pushes them away and she would have cried about a lot more if she wasn't suddenly shoved to the ground, her face meeting hard unforgiving earth and feeling a hand on her waist.
Confused why somebody was touching her there she brought her own hand to the place only to notice that the hand that had touched her had already vanished. But that was not the only thing she noticed, her wand was gone too!
"Now look who we have here. Our class genius Yukari-chan." He closed the distance to her and continued in voice full of obviously fake sympathy, "Oh what's wrong, why were you crying? Was someone mean to you? Or have you finally noticed what big of an embarrassment you are for this school?"
"Class representative …?" Yukari's thoughts were still a mess so all the insults didn't really register for her, her brain was still trying to reboot when she noticed something in the hands of the class representative and his now three goons 'Heh they're increasing like cockroaches.'
"Without your little stick you're nothing more than a weak human and you still dare to insult me and my friends?!" Looks like she spoke that last part out loud, "You're not happy with disgracing me in front of all the students, no, you insult my friends too!" He was swelling with anger that bordered on fury, when he took half a step back, broke her wand with his now transformed mouth and after revealing his monster form as Lizardman and spoke with a slightly mad glee: "Witches are such disgusting beings. We don't need something like you in our class, no in the Academy and as a class representative it's my task and duty to rid the Academy of disgusting beings like yourself!"
Yukari saw it in small motion. She could differ every little detail and still could do nothing more than stand still and await her demise. So with morbid fascination she watched as the Lizardman in front of her opened his maul while launching himself at her, his gigantic tooth inching closer and closer to her face, his mouth opened so wide that her entire head could fit in, but she still could do nothing more than stand there, frozen in shock and fear about what was to happen in a few seconds, seeing it in details she had never thought possible, when something else entered her heighten vision. She couldn't exactly determine what it was, it was only on the edge of her vision, but it was coming closer and closer to the centre of her vision that was still fixed on the gigantic tooth when she could make out the first details of it.
It was a hand curled into a fist and whoever the fist belonged to was wearing her school uniform and going by how the hand looked it was probably from one of the male students.
And with that revelation the world began to operate with normal speed again, but the gigantic tooth of the monster in front of the little witch never tasted from her tender flesh.
Instead the tooth, or better said the entire face was met with a fist and enough power behind it to launch the class representative a few steps back, reeling in shock, surprise and anger about what happened.
Now standing in front of his target stood four students, three female and one male and once he recognised who it was his anger increased once more.
"It's you again! Wasn't humiliating me enough?! Now you are defending something as despicable as a witch, just to mock me?!" The green of his scaled face was now overshadowed by a red that stemmed from his anger.
"Nope, we're defending her because she's a friend, whatever monster she may be!" The statement from Kirito caused several different reactions. On the bad guys side mostly disbelieve, the surprise and anger was already there before Kirito had delivered that statement, on his friends side just some nodding and on the little witches side it brought out a large amount of disbelieve and new tears.
"Bu-…But why would you … you be friends with me? … Even though I was so mean to you … and … and … and even though you know that I'm a witch!" It didn't make sense, maybe she hadn't antagonised him a lot, but she had planned to and normally once they knew she was a witch they would shun her, at least her class did.
"Because you're Moka's friend and a friend of Moka is our friend too, right guys?" Kirito was giving her such an honest smile in the few seconds he had turned his head back to her, she barely even noticed the confirmations coming from the three girls.
"You're just as disgusting as the witch! Let's go guys, time to dispose of the witch trash and her friends!" His goons took that command as signal to transform themselves into their monster forms. They were another two Lizardmen and one Tanuki, a monster from the dog family.
They charged forward to end the five students in front of them, only to come to an abrupt stop once they were hit by an aura filled with so much Yoki that they couldn't move for a few seconds.
Once the four monsters had broken out of their spell they took a second look at their prey and suddenly a lot of self-confidence vanished. Standing in front of them was a S-class monster, a real vampire, next to her a monster with ice-powers, obvious because of her ice claws and another monster that was probably a succubus or a devil going by her wings. The boy didn't transform, but the girls alone were enough to frighten them.
At least for a short moment, before they resumed their charge, throwing rational thought out of the window, otherwise they would have retreated, because they didn't stand a chance in hell against a vampire.
"Moka, please take the head Lizard, Mizore, Kurumu mind taking the other two Lizards? I'm gone play a little bit with this doggie here!" Kirito told them and in the next moment they met their opponents, or punching back in the girls case.
Moka took two seconds to eliminate her opponent, the most time spent on saying: "Now your place!"
Mizore took five seconds to cool the head of her opponent down, continuing with the rest of his body until he was little more than an ice statue.
Kurumu too took ten seconds to show the lizard that and enemy that could fly and had really long, sharp and deadly nails was not an opponent he could even dream on handling.
Kirito's fight would definitely not end so fast.
His enemy was some kind of dog-Yokai, probably a Tanuki and that meant he was faster and probably stronger than Kirito. Normally that would be enough to defeat any normal human student, but that was luckily not the case with Kirito. He had already fought enemies far stronger and faster than him in SAO and with the little thinking his opponent was investing into attacking him it was almost like he was fighting Boars on Floor one again. Okay he had no sword, so he had to use the little hand to hand he knew, but that shouldn't bother him too much.
Tilting his head slightly to the right to evade a punch by a hairs breath that he had long seen coming and redirecting another punch with his right hand he sucker punched his opponent in the stomach, only to notice that his opponent almost ignored the action. He didn't shrug it off like Saizo, but it would probably take a lot of time to finish him with just hits to the stomach, so a change of plans.
The girls had finished their fights and Mizore and Kurumu already wanted to jump into the fight from Kirito, when they were stopped by a hand, which belonged to Moka. "Let him fight alone, let's see if he is strong enough to spar with me."
"But he's only human, what are you gonna do if that dog hurts him?" Kurumu exclaimed, never noticing the wide eyes the little witch behind her got once she heard that. 'He's a human and fighting to protect me!?'
"I wouldn't worry Kurumu, that Tanuki has yet to land a single hit on him, while Kirito already has landed some quite crushing hits. The only problem he has is that he is weaker than the monster in front of him. Skill wise he is so high above him that he would have probably ended the fight as fast as we did if he had our or at least regular monster strength."
"Not bad Mizore, you're pretty observant."
"I pride myself as a first class stalker, so that much is a given." She puffed her chest out a little at that statement.
"I'm not too sure if you should be proud about that."
"Shut it Kurumu, you could almost say it's a tradition for Yuuki-Onna to do that."
During their bantering Kirito was fighting on and his change in tactics was showing the first results. He didn't know that much about monster anatomy, but he speculated that normal weak points such as joints and the head were still the same.
So he targeted them instead of dealing as much damage as possible he had reduced his counter attacks and normal attacks to inflict more damage on those weak points and it was showing a lot faster results than when he had targeted the stomach and other parts of the monsters body.
His opponent was already getting a bit slower and evading him was now easier than ever. Ducking to the right, redirecting another punch to his left, launching his own low kick to make his opponent stumble and once he tried to regain his balance using the momentum of his first kick, or better said sweep he launched a punch at the nose of the Tanuki, one of the main weak points of a normal dog, which was followed by a cracking sound. Because of the blood coming from the nose, Kirito never noticed that his own blood from the wound he had gotten when he had punched the head Lizard in the face had gotten onto the face of the Tanuki.
Further using the momentum of the punch he spun around himself, catapulting into the air and delivering a mighty round house kick to his opponents head whose only reactions was a widening of his eyes as he realized he wouldn't be able to evade or block it, or was it maybe because of the blood? But why would that be? Not that it was Kirito's problem, since he never even noticed it, because his brain in battle mode did not deem it important.
"Impressive for a human." Kirito turned his head towards Moka's voice and answered her.
"That would have gone a lot faster if I had had a sword. Hand to hand is not really my speciality." He replied while scratching his head.
"No, that was really impressive Kirito, for you to defeat him this soundly, it was great." Mizore complimented him and not one to be outdone Kurumu shortly followed: "That was awesome, now I know exactly why you're my destined one!" and he evaded another suffocation-… show of affection attempt from Kurumu, eliciting a pout from her.
"I believe you wanted to ask me if we could start our spars from now on, consider your request granted." Inner had a small grin on her face and looked quite happy about how everything turned out.
"Did you mean it, being my friends?" Yukari asked the four of them who had momentarily forgotten about her, thanks to the display Kirito had shown them. It was unpreceded that a human could trash a monster so soundly without receiving any damage so that was a small wonder, but now the attention was back on her again.
"Sure, as I said before, Moka's friends are my friends and besides how could I not want to be friends with someone as cute as you." Kirito was not the best when it came to understand woman, but thanks to Silica he knew that little girls normally liked it when they were called cute so he went with that.
The results were surprising to say the least. Moka had already attached her Rosario back on again, so she was as unprepared as Kirito when the little witch launched herself at both of them and declared her undying love for them.
They managed to persuade her to be friends first, or at least Kirito believed that they managed that and so his little circle had gained another member that applied to the newspaper club on the same day, much to the happiness of one homeroom teacher.
Yukari's life improved a lot from then on, she stopped playing pranks on her classmates and after an apology most of them were nice to her or at least stopped bullying her.
The only other significant thing that happened was that Kirito had to visit the doctor again to treat his hand, not that the wound was bad, but the blood had ruined his final school uniform, so he wanted to have it bandaged before he ruined his normal clothes with it too.
AN:
It took quite some bit, but here is the next chapter :D
As always, not proofread, so point out any mistakes you find I will correct the later on, and I it looks like writing combat scenes is not my greatest forte, but I will try to improve :D
*Spoiler Alert*
Next chapter Kirito is finally getting his weapions
*Spoiler Alert End*
I hope you all like it and if you have any ideas you want to share with me please write a review about them :-) I promise I won't bite xD
Disclaimer: I own nothing
And sad news: I am going to start university soon so my updates are probably going to take a lot longer now, but I will try to release at least one chapter a month ;D
