Hello and welcome to another chapter of TBS :)
IMPORTANT: I changed the last chapter! Whoever read it before the middle of November should reread it or the status of the relationship between Mizore and Kirito won't make any sense!
I know it's been some time, but University (Chemistry especially) is taking up quite a bit of my time. For more details look at the bottom AN ;-)
¨Xxx¨ … talking
'Xxx' … thoughts
Xxx … normal
*story start*
Kirito wasn't sure if he should be happy about the current situation or not. The last two weeks, at least those days he still remembers, after leaving the hospital and reassuring Mizore that they were still good he had slept for another two days.
That was how long it took him to get his body's energy reserves back to a manageable level. After he had finally awoken he had been visited by the priestess and had gotten some information about his new inmate that started to reside in his body? Head? Soul? Kirito wasn't too sure and according to Jack, the demon possessing the priestess, Serena needed more time to accumulate herself with him, which meant she too couldn't tell it to them. He still hadn't heard anything from her, the name was supplied by Jack, but according to him it was now only a matter of days until she would make herself noticeable.
Kirito had to call his parents and told them that a blizzard had caught them by surprise and that he wasn't able to come home for the second week. He wasn't happy about lying to them, but it was his only option beside going home and turn his room into an Igloo since he had next to no control over his powers.
His friends and family were naturally not too happy about that, but after telling them that he would be back as soon as the next holidays started and that he was safe they were somewhat satisfied and he could end the call. The call to Argo was somehow different, after he had mentioned at which school he was now studying she had gotten strangely quiet for a moment, only to extract the promise from him that he would come visit her as soon as possible.
The entire second week of the holidays had been used to teach Kirito to control his new powers, which had worked not too bad, he now wasn't causing snow to fall wherever he went and he started to display the first positive results in actively using his new power. Mizore had explained to him that those powers depended a lot on imagination and at the last day, yesterday, he had finally been able to form something resembling a sword with his powers.
Another effect of his possession or merging or whatever, was that his body too had improved. Before he had finally been able to achieve a normal level, but now he was sure that his bodily strength resembled himself in SAO after floor 60 or something, which meant he was already stronger and faster than most if not all of humanity. Still nothing compared to the likes of Moka, but he was pretty sure Saizo would be no longer a problem if he decided to come back.
Mentioning Moka brought him back to his initial question of being happy or not. On one hand he had finally been reunited with his friends, school was starting again and neither Mizore nor himself had been killed after they had revealed to their friends, exactly what had happened. Though Inner would probably mop the floor with him in their next training session.
Yeah, that was what he had been doing until a few seconds ago. Kirito and Mizore had gotten out of the bus and had been greeted by their other friends, only for them to instantly find out that something about Kirito had changed. Once they had told them that Kirito now was a Yuuki-Oni, Kurumu and Inner Moka were seconds away from jumping Mizore, only to be stopped Kirito. Well he had stopped Kurumu, Inner wasn't to much of a problem since Moka still had her Rosario on, but the threatening through the Rosario was enough for them to know that it wouldn't have been pretty.
After they had been able to explain themselves in more details though neither of the two planned to go through with their threats.
¨So let me get that straight. You two were about to get into the village when the Yetis came out of the forest and you had to run away, with the only possible route being full of crevasses.¨ At their nod Yukari continued. You then fell into one and Mizore injured herself pretty badly and Kirito did something akin to making a deal with the devil to get both of you out of there and that turned him into a Yuuki-Oni.¨ Another nod from the two mentioned. ¨ And now he has the same powers as you and possible more, since a demon gave it to him and you are still at the very early stages of controlling it, right Kirito.¨
¨ Yeah, that about sums it up. But after thinking about it for a bit I have to say I actually got pretty lucky that day.¨ As soon as Kirito had said that the girls gave him looks that demanded an explanations and he could feel that they did not share his opinion on that matter.
¨ Well, first I got lucky by even surviving the fall and landing in the only cave with a demo inside it. Second reason why I got lucky is because it doesn't seem like I made a deal with a bad demon, at least according to what I have been told in the village and finally my new powers don't seem to have a negative effect on me and I will finally be able to help you out when the next monster decides that it must fight against us for whatever reason.¨ As soon as he had finished his last reason, he had a pretty angry Moka, Kurumu and Yukari in front of him, all three pointing fingers at him and just before they could make their displeasure known Mizore interrupted them, because she knew exactly what they were displeased about and had already talked it over with Kirito.
¨ You three don't have to worry, Kirito isn't having a stupid delusion about 'We are girls he has to protect us' he just means that he can finally contribute his own share. He had used that same reasoning with me when I had asked him why he wasn't angry with me about what happened and so far he is right, beside the fact that he isn't human anymore, everything else is positive. He can now finally protect himself, his personality is still the same and as you can see, so long as you didn't know he was human before and now felt his Yoki levels nobody is ever going to recognize something has happened.¨ That pacified her friends and brought a look of relieve on her friends face.
¨ Good, because we definitely won't be playing damsels in distress for you Kirito.¨ The slight smirk on Kurumu's face told him that he had survived and they could now finally return to school, if they hurried they would probably be able to reach class before the final bell.
-_-_-()-_-_-
The rest of the Semester progressed without incident and his spars with Moka were getting better and better. Moka was already using her full speed and only holding back in the strength department and even there it got less and less with each spar. His inhuman reflexes were one of the main reasons that allowed Moka to look forward to using her entire power against him sometime soon in the future.
His second semester too started out without incident and he was finally able to get a relatively good grip on his new powers. He could now form simple ice-swords, even though they were rather crude, and other simple ice manipulations were now possible too.
Thanks to the spars with Inner Moka and his daily control training with Mizore his swords may have still looked rather crude, but after testing it out before their routine spars they found out that his best sword could withstand three hits from Inner Moka without being shattered, which, considering that she was an S-class monster, was pretty impressive.
The only strange thing was that he still hadn't heard anything from Serena after all this time, but since he wasn't experiencing any strange or bad effects from his powers he didn't really need her at the moment.
And why should he risk the peaceful status quo? As he knew his luck that status wouldn't last anyway so why should he actively try to disrupt it? Not that he even knew how he would achieve anything like that.
But he had a feeling that the status quo would be destroyed pretty soon. Now most would be wondering why exactly Kirito had such a feeling, but that is rather easy to explain.
At the moment Kirito was standing in front of the school with his friends, Gin included, and were handing out their latest issue of their school newspaper.
That was a normal club activity and shouldn't have caused such a feeling for Kirito, but once again one had to look closer to understand it. Well not too close, a look at the front page of the paper would be enough.
Academy Public Safety Commission, a school protector or a mafia styled bullying club?
That headline and the following three pages special was the result of what had happened a week ago, when they had handed out their newspaper like today and the APSC pay them a visit and demanded payment and the right to censor their paper.
Naturally that didn't go over too well with the girls and Kirito, though Gin had surprised them with his reaction, he didn't support them, to the shock of the girls he had wanted to comply with their demands!?
That course of action was down voted pretty quickly since Gin didn't provide any reason beside, you don't mess with the APSC and todays special issue was born.
While the girls reason for doing this was because they didn't like bullies or/and had previous experiences with them Kirito had another reason, that brought him back to a world full of mystery, monsters and bladed steel. To him the APSC felt like the guild the army, just with a more sinister spin to it, since the man on the top wasn't a good and nice person like Thinker, but instead a power hungry and as far as he could tell narcissist bigoted ass that needed to be taken down a few pegs.
They at first had thought it would take at least a month for their investigations to reveal enough for an article in their newspaper, but to their shock they had enough material just after three days. They saw them blackmailing, threatening and harming other students and clubs and from interviews with students they were able to get, after promising to not reveal their names, they had a very long list with the crimes of the APSC that was just short of proven murder, most had suspicions against them for missing students, but since they were more or less the justice system of the school and since Kuyou was a very strong fire based monster nobody was able to do anything against them.
Well, that was about to change, the article would undermine Kuyou's power base and discredit the APSC quite a lot.
And distributing the newspaper didn't prove to be a problem, they were gone faster than ever before, even if the APSC had wanted to confiscate their stock again, they wouldn't' have been able too since it was already gone and even if they were able to vanish the paper, the news were out and would travel from mouth to mouth, a schools rumor mill should never be underestimated.
Feeling great after accomplishing something like that the five friends and an unhappy Gin made their way to their classes, a bit worried about Kuyou's reaction, but certain that they would be able to overcome whatever he would plan to do to them.
-_-_-(Kuyou's den aka PASC HQ)-_-_-
¨Look at what those bastards dared to print in their rubbish!¨ Kaito was not a happy Spiderwoman. It had take her three hours to get a sample of todays paper and that irritated her to no end. Once she had read what was in the paper she had left the stage of irritated and was screaming bloody murder.
It had taken her three hours to get a newspaper because she hadn't expected for todays sample to be out that fast and she couldn't confiscate one either, because as soon as she was seen by a student the paper was already hidden away and the student who hid it was away most of the time too.
But then she had finally gotten one and was just seconds away from killing the student she had gotten I from. How dare they print something like that about them! Couldn't they see it? Without the PASC the school couldn't function and would descend into chaos in a matter of days. They enforced justice on the school body and puny little newspaper club had no right to question them! Oh she was going to destroy them, but now she had to tell Kuyou about this travesty and see justice handed out or better said, a club being burned to the ground.
Kuyou read the paper and if it hadn't been for the headmaster having a talk with him about the newspaper club to be left alone he would incinerated them here and now.
¨Calm down Kaito. I know what you want to do now and believe me I really want to enact justice upon seeing this, but the headmaster has told me yesterday that the newspaper club is to be left alone, which means that our hands are bound.¨ He could see Kaito was about to interject something in her apparent anger, but Kuyou had already thought of his options and had found an exploitable loophole, ¨But that just protects the newspaper club, if we can get them for something else we can do what we want, just like always. One of their friends, preferable that boy, vanishing for good in our dungeons should cower them enough to make sure that they never make another edition of their rubbish.¨
¨Why exactly the boy? Not that I care, but either of them should be fine to cower the group and enact justice.¨ Kaito's anger was mostly quelled thanks to the prospect of a new inmate to their dungeon, which would soon be there.
¨That's because of some of the rumors going around him being the one to defeat a troll called Saizo and as far as my investigation revealed is he the one who has gathered the friends, which means that blow would probably hurt a lot more for the girls and if we tell him we imprisoned his friends too, in other parts of the dungeon his imagination and despair will do us a wonderful job in starting to break him. When we are finished with him he won't even breath without our permission or be a pile of ash.¨ Kuyou's laughter could be heard in the entire HQ, even after a sadistically smiling Kaito had left his office.
The smiling was only partly because of what awaited the damnable newspaper club. When she had finally left the PASC club building again her face was an indifferent mask and she herself was a executive on a mission, a mission she had made a personal goal to fulfill.
Sadly that proved harder than she had thought. Not one of her targets had been alone when they left the school building and they hadn't broken even one school rule that she was able to think of. And that fact frustrated her quite a bit. Which was the reason why she was now in the dungeons. It was a long shot, but she didn't want to spend so much time on observing the five friends instead of torturing them and maybe one of the inmates new something interesting about them.
¨HEY YOU SORRY LOT! TODAYS YOUR LUCKY DAY! IF ONE OF YOU CAN GIVE ME SOMETHING GOOD ABOUT THE CURRENT NEWSPAPER CLUB I MIGHT BE WILLING TO LET YOU OUT!¨ Her voice was heard in the entire dungeon through the speakers and since a chance to get out was really, really rare she soon had five inmates in front of her who claimed to know something.
The first four were soon back in their cells with a few new wounds, beside made up things they knew nothing. The last one proofed to be the jackpot though.
Running into Kuyou's office again Kaito couldn't contain herself, it was just too good. ¨Kuyou, Sir. I think I just hit the Jackpot. After I wasn't able to see them doing anything that could be twisted into them breaking a rule I went into the dungeons and asked if someone knew something about their group. Four that came for made things up and I'm going to pay them a visit later for wasting my time, but the fifth one had the Jackpot.¨
Kuyou listened and he had to give it to her, this really was the Jackpot, with that he could even go over the headmaster's order and shut down the newspaper club permanently. Plans were made and tomorrow, a Friday was chosen to apprehend the suspect, which gave them a weekend to work him over and then come Monday he would hold a magnificent display of their power in front of the entire school.
-_-_-(Friday morning)-_-_-
Kirito didn't know why, but he had a bad feeling about today. The day started out normal and nothing special happened during their lessons but he just couldn't shake of the feeling of something terrible happening soon.
And to his dismay, he was proven right. They had just finished with their club meeting, when Kuyou, Kaito and ten others barged into their club room and to the shock of everyone started saying:
¨Kirigaya Kazuto, you are a suspect in a case we are currently on and need you to follow us for further questioning.¨
There was silence for a full five seconds, then Mizore exploded, cutting of her friends who were about to do the same. ¨ And what case is that? Did a blackmail not turn out as you wanted or has someone dared to fight back? And why should he come along with the twelve of you, knowing exactly how corrupt you are?!¨
That caused another silence. For the PASC because they never had garnered a response like that and for the friends because that response was both just a little bit out of character for their friend. But once you knew what Mizore knew, it didn't really sound out of character anymore. Mizore had investigated how the PASC operated and she knew that they would probably throw Kirito into the dungeon, never to be seen again and she would be damned if he let that happen to her best friend and if it came to a fight, then so be it, she and Kirito didn't train for nothing, not to mention Kirito's training with Moka.
Mizore would be damned before she gave up Kirito without a fight, true the cards were heavily staked against them, but she had gotten a lot closer to Kirito ever since the Yeti incident and he would do the same for her, hell he already did when he accepted the deal with the demon.
¨Ahhh, you are Mizore Shirayuki right?¨ Kuyou was way to relaxed for her liking and she was proven right when after her confirmation Kuyou produced a very official looking sheet of paper from one of his goons that in short stated that the two of them had to come with him or be expelled from school. It was fake, but Kuyou knew that they didn't know that and once the crime was confirmed nobody would bother him about little details.
They couldn't do anything against that and to their dismay had to follow them to the PASC club building into what they correctly identified as an interrogation room. That that room was next to Kuyou's and Kaito's office said a lot about the character of the two.
Inside the interrogation room was another person, one that they hadn't seen in quite some time.
¨What are you doing here?¨ Kirito was confused. He had recognized the student in an instant, but he didn't have the slightest idea why he would be here.
¨Getting the fuck out of here and getting back at you!¨ the student sneered in Kirito's and Mizore's direction.
Mizore was now officially confused. She had thought about a few reason for what the both of them could possibly be prosecuted, but not one of them had involved one of the guys that had bullied Yukari, back in their first semester. From his comment she could deduct that he probably knew something and his statement would be used against them, but for the world of her she didn't know what that could possibly be. A look to Kirito confirmed that he too hadn't the slightest idea what the PASC had planned for them.
When she had looked to Kirito and he had noticed her his confused expression was accompanied by shrugged shoulders that told her that he really hadn't the slightest idea what was going on. But she could read another thing from his eyes, which was mainly concern for her, here she might have gotten a slight blush, and quite a bit of anger about the entire situation.
And Mizore knew exactly where that anger was coming from. During the time he had stayed in the village the both of them had gotten closer and he had shared with her a few things about his live. It hadn't taken too long for her to understand exactly what had happened during the SAO crisis since she knew about it from the newspapers, but hearing what exactly was entailed by being forced to play it was an entire different matter. She had thought when she had first heard about it that it couldn't be too bad. Computer games and similar things were rare in her village, but she had once a human friend who had shown some to her before he had left her. From that bit she knew that you could beat every game with enough tries.
And there Kirito had told her something that the newspaper hadn't mentioned. They had only one try. And that had shocked her into silence, Kirito hadn't noticed and further told her about what happened. How he had left his first friend that he had made, his fights against both monsters and humans, how he got his beater title, at the end of the holidays he had even told her about Sachi and what he had done to stop the player killer guild LC. She in turn had him told about her first friend and what had happened once she had told him exactly what she was.
Both of them had cried and more than once cried themselves to sleep in the arms of the other, but they knew and could feel it, talking about what had happened in their lives had lifted a burden from both of their shoulders and had deepened their friendship a lot. And if everything went as Mizore would like it too, then that friendship would soon develop to something more.
After the fiasco with her first human friend she had researched humans quite a bit and knew now a lot more about human relationships compared to Yuuki-Onna ones. She didn't understand everything and getting accurate information was kind of difficult, but she knew that first she would have to be his girlfriend before she could marry him. Since she was a bit pressed for time because of what type of monster she was, Mizore had been waiting for a good opportunity to ask Kirito out. She would have preferred for Kirito doing the asking out, but she knew that he was slightly social awkward and had yet to be in a relationship, the fact that he had spent a lot of time gaming instead of socializing wasn't helping him either.
Because of that she had been waiting for a good opportunity, but there hadn't been one yet and somewhere in her mind she had to confess to herself, that she too was very nervous about it.
Before she could muse any further about initiating any relationships, she noticed that she hadn't noticed quite a bit. Namely that they had left the interrogation room with the ex-bully and where now in the dungeons. Identifying them wasn't too hard, since there were cells everywhere and the screams of protests about being here from the inmates weren't making it too difficult.
Kirito stepped a bit closer to her and whispered ¨what's wrong Mizore, you were kind of out it for a while?¨. To that Mizore had the decency to look a bit sheepish, she had to concentrate on getting out and not about getting into a relationship with Kirito, that could come later when both of them were a bit safer.
¨ Everything's alright, I was just thinking about something.¨ Before Kirito was able to comment on that Kuyou interrupted them.
¨Now that we are finally here it's time for you to receive your punishment. Anything you want to say before we administer it?¨
¨How about telling us why we are even here? As far as I know I haven't broken any rules since your lapdog started following us around.¨ Kaito was about to deliver an angry retort about that, but Kuyou interrupted her with his hand and pointed towards the ex-bully who had come with them.
¨Thanks to our dutiful student here it has come to our attention that you have broken one of the most important rules of this Academy and as far as we know your friend here helped you to conceal this transgression, which is also the reason why she is here with you.¨ Kuyou's smug grin was not reassuring in the slightest and was probably one of the reasons why Kirito had positioned himself in front of her and more important, at least for him, between his friend and the two main threats plus one inconsequent (the ex-inmate).
After they had entered the only room that hadn't bars as a door Kuyou continued with his speech, reveling in his momentary power over them. He will probably soon come to regret that thought.
¨This faithful student of this marvelous Monster Academy has brought to the attention of the PASC that the most important rule was breached! Thankfully we know exactly how to deal with such a situation, even though it is the first time something so terrible has happened.¨
Kirito was only paying half of his attention to Kuyou. That half decided that he would have made a great actor and an even greater sleeping help or a politician. His ability to talk on and on without getting to the point and the flare for dramatics he was showing qualified him for all three jobs. The other half of his attention was battle ready. The ice swords were just a thought away from forming, the picture of them already firmly in his mind, he himself was positioned in such a way that he could see all three of his enemies and Mizore was behind him to provide range support.
Those tactical aspects of their positions was lost to Kaito. She enjoyed the feeling of power over others too much to pay attention to something like that and even if she had, she would have probably called Mizore a coward for hiding behind her friend, never wasting a thought about tactical positions in such a situation.
¨This individual -¨ Kuyou was interrupted by the mentioned student.
¨Sir my name is-¨ and that's as far as he got.
¨Doesn't matter! And if you dare to interrupt me again you can say goodbye to getting out of here!¨ Kuyou snarled at him. ¨So where was I before this untimely interruption? Ah right, your crime! You low life have dared to wander into our proud school under my MY careful watch and thought that I wouldn't find out that you were a human!¨ That was one of Kuyou's favorites moments, when he shattered the hope of a convict and realization hits them. Their expressions were great and made his day sooooo much better.
.
.
.
Beside the fact that it didn't happen?! Both of them looked relieved? The boy even dared to smirk at him!
¨So this entire affair was completely unnecessary. As you can see,¨ Kirito used that moment to transform his hands into ice claws,¨ I am just as much a monster as Mizore here beside me. It would probably be better if you used more reliable sources of information.¨ The smirk on Kirito's face was gigantic now. For once fate had played right into his hands. The same accusations before the winter break would have caused quite some problems, but now they were baseless and false and he was pretty sure that the next newspaper issue would contain something about this 'interrogation'.
Mizore too was happy now and sported her own smirk. That was a positive aspect of Kirito's demon possession she hadn't even thought about.
¨THAT CAN'T BE! YOU WERE HUMAN! I SMELLED IT, THERE IS NO WAY THAT I WAS WRONG!¨ the Tanuki, whose name still hadn't come up, screamed at them in panic, fear clear in his face, the emotion competing with his anger and shock.
Kirito was about to present him with a great and witty comeback when he suddenly burst into flames.
¨Now that is quite a problem…¨ the way Kuyou said that reassured Kirito not in the slightest and the fact that he just casually killed another student had earned him a place very high up on Kirito's shit list.
-_-_-(Newspaper club HQ)-_-_-
¨ And that is why I told you to let the PASC alone! They are corrupt and powerful, why didn't you listen to me?¨ Gin was not happy.
¨Because it's the right thing to do and because I AM definitely not going to cower before some self announced leader of justice who bullies and blackmails others!¨ ¨ Exactly!¨ Kurumu and Yukari did not share Gin's view on the matter. Not at all.
¨Let's go Yukari, if our big bad wolf is to afraid of them we two are going to have to rescue our friends alone.¨ With that Kurumu and Yukari left the room, on their way to help their friends.
.
.
.
¨ I know that this is a stupid idea and I shouldn't do this … Oh fuck it! Hey Kurumu, Yukari WAIT FOR ME!¨
-_-_-(Infirmary)-_-_-
¨Prepare some beds, I have a feeling that a certain young black male is going to visit us soon and he is probably going to bring some students with him."
¨ Yes doctor.¨
AN:
First and foremost sorry about the cliffhanger and how long it took me to get this out, but as I wrote at the start, Uni is taking up a lot of my time.
I hope you like it and the next chapter is going to be the first big battle for Kirito with swords (YES FINALLY!) and his friends
Disclaimer: I own nothing
Please review, I read every one of them and they are quite a big motivator for me to write :D And please tell me if the part about the Kirito Mizore relationship is now better than before ^.^
And I think I screwed up the canon plot, if I am not wrong the Witch hill was before the PASC or not? Well doesn't matter, it's AU and my story so screw the original time line *evil laughter*
PS.: I will soon start introducing SAO Characters for all those who asked ;)
Until next time ;-)
