And here we have chapter 6 of The Black Snowstorm :D

"xxx" talking

"Xxx" Demon speech/memories

'xxx' thinking

Xxx Report

*story start*

It had already been a bit more than three months since Kirito had first set foot into the supernatural world. At first he had a few problems, mainly that his body was still weak from his time in the hospital, no internet connection, very reduced napping time and something he at first really didn't expect to be a problem, he had no swords. Normally that wouldn't be strange, since who needs swords for school besides maybe when you were in a club, but it was different for Kirito. As the only non-monster in the school he had a severe disadvantage against all the other students, which he was able to compensate with his experience and reflexes, but those could only bring him so far.

But he hadn't thought about the last problem for some time. He hadn't gotten into any fights for some time, the spars and training with Inner-Moka were improving his instincts and reactions to a degree were he would have no problems facing off against weak and middle levelled monsters, but as he knew his luck the next opponent he would face would definitely not come from one of those two categories.

But he ignored that for now. His grades were good and he was just a few seconds away from the first holiday break in his new school. Winter break would be for two weeks and he was really looking forward to seeing his parents, his sister/cousin and his friends again.

But before he saw them he would be spending some time with the first friend he made in the Academy. She had somehow found out about his birthday, his main theory being that she broke into the headmaster's office to get the data, and had invited him to her home so that they could spent the first week of the holidays in her village. She had further elaborated her offer/present to him by saying that her home was perfect for skiing, snowboarding, hiking and everything else she could think of that was somehow related to mountains, snow or ice like ice skating.

Kirito needed just a few seconds to consider the offer, which could have had to do something with the embarrassed face and the nervousness in her voice she had had when she told him about it and after accepting he had told his other friends and family that he would come visit them in the second week, because he was invited by a friend to go skiing in the first.

"Kirito look, our bus has finally arrived!" He had never seen Mizore so bubbly, but why was that? She was probably just happy about seeing her parents again; he told himself and dismissed the thought.

Over the last month Mizore had come to a decision. She had had her doubts at first, but just after three months Kirito had wormed himself into her heart. She was pretty sure that what she felt for him was more than 'just' friendship.

She had realized that while watching him that he was probably perfect for her. He had a nice, laidback personality, they got along really well, her heart beat faster whenever she was near him since she had her moment of realisation and that he was really good looking, even though he said he looked too effeminate, was definitely not a point against him.

But with that also came some problems, namely she didn't know how she should tell him and if he felt the same for her. For all his greatness in personality, school and battle, he was way too obvious. Her subtle hints were ignored or disregarded and she didn't know if she had it in her to outright tell him and possibly get a rejection. She definitely not wanted to lose Kirito as a friend, but if he rejected her confession that was a definite possibility. And because of Kirito's obviousness she couldn't use her favourite modus operandi, namely observing so long until she was sure what actions towards him would cause what reaction.

Yuuki-Ona in general are a shy and observant race. It was pretty common to observe a potential friend for a few weeks before approaching him or her and it was common to take a lot longer for a potential marriage candidate. That she already considered Kirito as such spoke a lot for him and his personality and at the same time brought Mizore out of her comfort zone.

So she was pretty happy when he had accepted her birthday present for him. Oh who was she kidding, she had a grin on her face for the entire day and since she normally didn't show to many emotions all her friends, including Kirito had asked her what had happened to make her so happy. Now she was just a bus ride away from her home where she would spend an entire week alone with Kirito, had her mother to give her some pointers and since it would be just the two of them hopefully an opportunity to find out about his feelings for her and to make a confession once she had some sort of assurance that she wouldn't lose him as friend. And she had the entire week to spent time alone with him. Don't get her wrong, she liked her other friends too, but it had been some time since it was only the two of them and after saying their good-byes to their friends they got into the bus and started their journey to Mizore's home, which was thankfully a rather short affair, due to the interdimensional travel the bus or bus driver, it was the creepy one from his first day again, were able to do.

Once they got out Kirito looked at Mizore, a, in his opinion rather important question on his lips, as he froze up while looking at Mizore. He didn't know why, but in that one moment his brain just kinda stopped working and focused its entire capacity on one task: Taking in the beautiful girl next to him. He didn't know why or what caused it and even if he thought back to it again later on he still wouldn't know why, but in that moment, surrounded by unending whiteness, a slight wind blowing through her beautiful light purple hair he was somehow at peace and felt that nothing mattered anymore. He lost himself in her deep blue eyes with a light purple spark and –

- and was broken out of this special, though unshared moment by a slightly concerned sounding Mizore.

"Kirito, is something wrong? You're spacing out again …" her voice trailed off and her cheek got very light red tint, since he was staring at her with an expression that she wasn't able to completely read. It practically radiated 'being at ease' so she wasn't concerned about it; maybe he was so taken in by the beauty of the snowy planes. Yeah, that probably was it, she herself was really happy about seeing the familiar mountains, forests and everything else again. 'Or he is taken in by your beauty.' A little voice in Mizore's head whispered to her, which prompted Mizore to increase the redness of her cheeks by around 300% and to turn her head away to not let him see her blushing.

Kirito, now broken out of his moment, himself turned a rather impressive shade of red, but after a few seconds, or were it minutes? Neither of them really knew, Kirito regained his speaking ability and was able to voice the question he wanted to ask her before he lost himself in her beautiful deep blue eyes 'stop it, she's your friend!', and was now finally able to voice it: "Ah yeah, don't worry, nothing's wrong, ähh where was I?... Ah right, Mizore, where exactly is your home, not that I don't appreciate the beauty of this area, but all I see is snow, is it hidden behind some kind of spell or something?"

Mizore, who had finally regained control of the amount of blood that was circulating through her cheeks raised her hand and pointed at the big mountain that was in front of them.

"My village is behind that mountain. It's surrounded by a mountain range and you were not too far off target, there is a spell placed around the village that prevents the village from being discovered through planes or something else from the sky."

"So we're gone go hiking up the mountain?"

"Yeah, it's just a few kilometres, don't worry, it will probably only take us around an hour to get there."

After an hour they had reached the top of the mountain and Kirito got his first look at Mizore's village and he had to give it to the Snow people, it was a gorgeous town. Kirito couldn't really describe it and he was sure whatever he may have said wouldn't have done justice to the piece of art he was seeing at the moment. Towers of ice connected with interloping railways also made entirely of ice the entire village was breath-taking.

Mizore was starting to get slightly worried, Kirito was staring into space again, the last time not even a full hour ago, but that was probably because of the view of her village. She had grown up in it and so it wasn't to breath-taking for her, but after being away for quite some time she too was a tiny bit marvelled at the beauty of the village.

But before she could say anything to Kirito he himself broke out of his spell and told her: "Mizore, your village is gorgeous, but I think you underestimated the way a bit, until we are down there another hour will be over-"

As he said that Mizore had activated her powers and crafted a set of skier's for both of them.

"- or not. Race me too the village?" You could say whatever you wanted about Kirito, but he was by nature competitive and racing down a mountain on skiers made out of ice, reaching obscene amounts of speed, there was no way he would miss out on that.

Cocking an eyebrow Mizore returned the smirk Kirito was giving her and accepted his challenge. "And you think you can beat me, a Youki-Onna in skiing?"

"If it wasn't a challenge it would be boring right?" He had gotten his skiers on and after giving her one last smirk he yelled out "LET'S GO!" and took off, Mizore mere centimetres behind him.

Kirito was in his element again, he hadn't been skiing too often up until now, but he also didn't mean that. The few times he was, he had been a natural at it and with being in his element he had meant the speed, adrenaline rush and the excitement he was feeling right now. Kirito loved speed, which was also the reason why he had chosen the sword in the game and had developed a built that mainly revolved around speed and strength and the reason why his bike was tuned to go a lot faster than normally possible or legal. In short, he was having the time of his life and going by the look Mizore was sporting she wasn't exactly unhappy either.

It took them no time at all to reach the half-way point of the mountain, when something changed. He didn't exactly know what was wrong, but his instincts were screaming at him that something was wrong and going by the fact that Mizore herself had too stopped and was looking around wearily it was probably not a mistake on his part.

And just the growl was heard from the forest that was right next to them he finally recognized why his instincts were screaming. Bloodlust. Unaltered, pure, raw bloodlust was coming from the forest and whatever gave it of was about to break through to them.

Mizore was frozen in shock. There was only one thing that could give of that bloodlust here, but it shouldn't be possible. They were on the side of the mountains that faced her village, hell they were only around half an hour by foot away from it. But still, there was only one being here that could give of that presence and just as she feared the first Yeti broke through the forest out in the open and going by the sound still coming from the forest, there were at least five more of them coming.

But that wasn't even their biggest problem. They not only came from their right but also from in front of them since the forest stretched around the mountain in a semi-circle and Yetis were very problematic for Yuuki-Onnas to fight against, since they somehow developed a natural resistance to their ice powers which meant that they shrugged of most of what she could shoot at them with their thick hides and it was a general rule in her village that if you found yourself in front of a Yeti your chance of winning was around 50/50 and seeking help from a ranger was the better option than fighting but it was still a possibility, the seven Yeti's that had come out of the forest were way too many for her so their only option left was running.

Which opened up another can of problems for her and because of that for Kirito. They couldn't go down and right because of the Yetis, they couldn't go up again, because they would be too slow and their only option, the left side, led to a part of the mountain that was rigged with ice caves and dangerous ravines, but the approaching monsters didn't really leave her a choice.

"Kirito, we have to go to the left side, it will be pretty dangerous, but my powers should help to keep us save from falling into one of the caves or ravines." He didn't look to happy, but nodded, knowing that he by himself had no chance against them as he was now and since Mizore chose the flight instead of fight option she herself probably too stood little chance against them.

So both of them turned to the left, speeding away from the seven monsters that were already getting a little close for comfort, Kirito following Mizore's trail and Mizore concentrating as hard as possible in the current situation on her powers to sense the potential death traps under the snow and finding a path that would lead them to safety.

They had gained a little distance to their followers again and Kirito was right next to her as she slowed down a little bit to explain to him what happened and what these monsters were when she noticed that she had made a gigantic mistake.

Because of the stress, speed, ingrained fear of the monsters and whatever other factor she had only scanned the ground around a depth of two metres. Until now that was enough since she sensed the ice at that depth and could identify the ravines and holes that way. But she had neglected the fact that ravines could have a thin layer of ice on them and at the moment both of them were right above at a seemingly gigantic ravine that had a layer of ice on it that was just thick enough to not alarm her senses, but still was way too thin to support both of them.

"Kirito!-" That was all she brought out before the layer of ice gave in and both of them fell into the darkness, Mizore and Kirito reaching out to the other and Mizore forming an ice shield around them.

-_-_-(Mizore's dream)-_-_-

"Mummy, how can the snow priestess tell the future?" a little Mizore asked her mother after seeing the priestess for the first time in her young life.

"Do you still remember the legend I told you about the two Ice demons Jack Frost and Serena Frost?"

"Yeah!" little Mizore was a bundle of energy and was hopping up and down while maintain her grip on mother's hand, "It was about the two demon siblings and how a third one forced both of them apart, making it so that only one was free and the other would be caged for ever, the free one not being able to find her, right?" Mizore's mother smiled at her child and replied to her.

"That's right and the demon that was free gave our priestess her powers, which in turn have led our people to peace."

"But isn't scary to get powers from a demon?"

"Sometimes there are situations where you would even make a deal with the devil to save the ones close to you and as you saw today, the demon isn't doing anything bad to our priestess so you don't have to worry."

"I wonder what such a situation would be …"

-_-_-(With Kirito in a pretty damn dark cave, ravine, whatever xD)-_-_-

Kirito looked around groggily, the fall had battered him up quite a bit and he had probably some broken bones, going by the fact that he couldn't move his left leg and right hand, but still, once he looked up and saw how deep he fell he was pretty happy to get away with just that.

After making sure that he was not about to bleed out he searched the ground for Mizore, she had probably taken the brunt of the fall with her powers and he had to make sure that she too was okay. That was not an easy task since there was little to no light coming from above, but after crawling around for fifteen minutes, walking was out of question for him, he finally found her and at the same moment wished he hadn't.

He was no expert, but she had both her legs and one arm broken, her stomach was bleeding and she had a pretty deep cut on her head and was only breathing shallowly. He didn't dare move her, it could make matters a lot worse if she had other injuries he hadn't seen yet, but there was not a lot he could do. Calling for help was impossible; climbing out too and all in all the only positive aspect the situation had was that the monsters were no longer following them. Which was in turn a moot point, since they would probably soon die down there if he didn't have a good idea pretty soon. His last option was to search for an exit, but even though he wasn't an enthusiastic geologist, he knew that ravines didn't have any exits.

While he contemplated what to do and did his best to ignore the pain he was starting to feel again, since the shock and adrenaline were wearing off his eyes had adapted to the darkness and he made out a faint blue glow in the darkness.

With nothing to lose and Mizore bleeding out on him he hoped for a miracle and moved to the glowing light.

Just before he could make out what gave of the glow he heard a voice:

"Ohh, how long has it been since the last sentient presence was down here." It had an unearthly sound to it and Kirito answered the voice with as much cunning, preparation and finesse that he could muster at the moment and in his surprise: "Who are you?!" Yeah it wasn't much.

"I am Serena and who might you and your dying friend over there be? It's not really nice to not introduce yourself." Kirito didn't know why but something about the voice or maybe the presence of the voice told him that he should definitely not get on said voices bad side, because it would and pretty bad for him and in following that Mizore.

"I'm Kirito and I was just about to visit my injured friend over there, when Yetis showed up and chased us into this ravine. I know it's a lot to ask for, but since you can even sense her condition, can you do something for my friend? Please, whatever you want for it name it and I will do it, but please if you can safe her." Kirito's voice was getting desperate and fragile while saying the last bit, he knew that he couldn't help Mizore any further with her wounds than he already had and getting outside help beside the strange voice was impossible.

"I wonder … what should I do? I could help her, it would probably be rather easy for me, but you see, nothing is for free in this world and as I am now I'm unable to do more than just talking, so sorry, I'm unable to help your friend."

Kirito knew that he was probably about to make a deal with the devil, but frankly he didn't care, SAO had ingrained a lot of things into his mind, like his fighting style with two swords, his reflexes and a lot more, but above all else it was the want, the need to protect his friends. He would go to hell, fight Satan and come back for them and if he had to make a deal with him instead of fighting, well his decision was made in an instant and was obvious.

"I don't know what you need, but whatever it may be, as long as you can save my friend I will do it."

"Anything boy? Don't you think that's pretty dangerous to tell to me? I might just take you up on that."

"Save her and name what you want to have done."

"You know boy, I think I'm going to like you … So that means you are doing this of your own free will, right."

That did not sound reassuring, but he had little choice in the matter now, so he stated in a resolute tone, without a doubt in his voice: "Yes."

"Good, then come to me and poor some of your blood over the blue crystal that's glowing in front of you."

Kirito got closer to the glow as fast as he could with his broken body and upon reaching the crystal, it was fist-sized and of a pure blue that kind of reminded him of Mizore's eyes, with smoke swirling inside of it, he did as the voice asked him too and held his right arm over it, blood trickling down on it from his wounds.

And with that agony began.

Kirito was falling and drifting at the same time, his being shrouded in ice and smoke, his senses in overdrive and still feeling nothing, beside the pain that his entire body was experiencing at the moment. It felt like someone broke down his body to as many parts as possible, threw those parts into a fire, then froze them with nitrogen, put them back together, only to start the process anew. Every nerve, every muscle, every part of his skin felt like it was being burned, frozen, broken and fixed at the same time.

Everything was pain and agony and Kirito would have probably gone crazy right there if there weren't two things that stopped him from doing so:

The first being two glowing eyes that looked with pity upon him.

And the second being the memory of the broken and battered Mizore who had risked her life to make sure that he survived the fall and was now waiting for him to survive whatever ordeal the voice had put upon him, so that she would heal her.

And the second one was the reason why he didn't embrace in the clutches of insanity that seemed so much more tempting and comfortable than retaining his sanity and living through the pain any longer.

It felt like years went by in his agony, when in truth it only lasted a few minutes. And after it was finally over his consciousness drifted into the farthest part of his mind to heal up again and left the reigns to his body in the hands of whatever new presence had entered his mind.

"Truly, an impressive human, having his body remodelled and retaining his sanity, while being weakened from his wounds, not bad at all. Looks like I found myself something interesting! Now to complete the end of my deal."

-_-_-(Snow village with Mizore's mother)-_-_-

Tsurara Shirayuki was getting worried. Her daughter should have been home with her potential marriage candidate two hours ago and she still hadn't her from them. According to the latest news from the rangers there was a group of Yetis out there that had ventured dangerously close to the village, but according to what she had heard they had vanished after being pursued into the forest.

This wouldn't normally be a cause for concern, but the rangers had had a meeting just two hours ago, which meant that during that time patrols were thinner than normal and it was a very real possibility that her daughter may have had a run in with the Yetis. Tsurara was normally the personification of being calm, as long as she wasn't being angered or irritated, but now she was about to completely lose her calmness over going into a slight panic about her only daughter when she spotted some movement in the corner of her vision.

She turned her head into the direction of the movement and spotted her daughter. But the immediate relief that she felt was soon destroyed and washed away by the realisation that her beloved daughter was in the arms of the dark haired stranger, unconscious and with blood all over her clothes.

Tsurara took off running to her girl and after two minutes that felt like hours for her she had reached the boy who was carrying her daughter and after he had handed her to her she finally took the time to take a look at him and what she saw made her gasp and she almost let Mizore fall out of her hands.

The boy had dark hair, just as her daughter had described him, but his eyes were not the onyx she had heard so much about, instead they were a deep, piercing blue that almost glowed and for the life of her, whatever he was, he was not a human as her daughter had told her, the presence he was radiating was more akin to that of the priestess if she had to compare it to something.

But that wasn't what had made her gasp, no, it was the rest of his body, he was bruised, bloody, his blue eyes were glazed over and to her horror she was able to see a bit of bone sticking out of his right hand.

She had no idea how he had been able to walk to the village and even more so by the fact that he had carried her daughter with his broke arm. Another thing that she noticed was that he had a smile on his face when he handed her her daughter and she could have sworn she had heard a voice whisper: "My part is complete, hope you won't regret it boy!"

With that his eyes closed and he fell down, unmoving laying in the snow, a little smile on his lips, even thought he was still in pain, even though he had retreated into the farthest part of his mind, he was still in great pain, from having his body broken, reformed and broken again while someone else was using it to escape the ravine and then fought the Yetis with it. He didn't notice the rangers that were carrying him and Mizore to the hospital, he didn't notice the commotion he caused and it would take quite some time until he would notice anything again, but that wasn't upsetting to him, neither was the pain, even though he registered nothing and before that he had registered almost nothing, he knew that the demon had kept its word and that Mizore was safe and that was enough for him to fill him with happiness.

AN.:

Soooo sorry that it took so long, but I started University and god I have to say, I have almost no time for anything :(

Which means that my updates are going to be slow and are probably going to be focused around holidays.

As stated above, my time is short, so I didn't get to proofread this, if you notice a mistake, point it out and I will fix it with the next update :D

Hope you all enjoy it and as always: Read & Favourite & Follow & Review

Disclaimer: I own nothing