Hello and welcome to another chapter of TBS :)
I AM ALIVE (*hides from angry masses screaming at me about where I was*)
I know it's been some time, but University (Chemistry especially) is still taking up quite a bit of my time and I got caught up in a few other fandoms. For more details look at the bottom AN ;-)
"Xxx" … talking
'Xxx' … thoughts
Xxx … normal
*story start*
"Now that is quite a problem …" Kirito did not like what he was hearing. After he had learned about the reasons why Kuyou had wanted to arrest them he had been relieved and was pretty sure that Kuyou had just placed another nail in his coffin because of his rash actions, but those words were spoken in a tone and way that didn't sit well with him at all. That was not a tone that suggested that his plans had been fouled, he didn't even seem annoyed that his plan was ruined, no he seemed, well it's hard to describe, but smug would probably fit? And by observing Kuyou's body language Kirito knew he was making himself ready for an attack, which would be completely unjustified, but his plan was probably to burn them to ashes like the tanuki and then spin some grand tale about how he had tried to reason with the two newspaper-club members, but it didn't work and what not.
All those thoughts came and went through Kirito's brain in less than a second, he was used to making plans, observations and connecting dots in such a short amount of time. Hell if it couldn't do that then he would have probably never survived SAO with his style of playing. As a solo player on floor 50+ you either had that ability or you would fall to an attack of a monster, because you had nobody to compensate for you.
Kuyou was still oblivious to the fact that Kirito was already ready for an attack and that Mizore too was readying herself thanks to a few signs Kirito had given her behind his back, which she thankfully was able to comprehend and continued where he had left off „… but I have a great solution for it." His smirk reached almost diabolic levels, „I just have to kill you two and nobody will be able to tell if you were human or not. I had planned to make your death a public execution, but alas we can't have everything and with your end it will be easy to shatter the remnants of the newspaper-club and bring back order and justice to Yokai Academy! So with that said …"
Kuyou was gathering Yoki into his right palm, probably to produce another fire and attack them with it, but before he could even fully form his attack he noticed that Kirito was in front of him 'Huh, how did he get over here so fast? And are these swor-' and cut him with a vicious double slash across his chest.
Kirito officially loved stereo villain typed opponents. He had no idea why they thought that he would silently wait and do nothing while they delivered their smug 'Fear me' or 'Bow before me' speech, but he didn't really care. The main point was that they left themselves with a gigantic opening and Kirito was happy to exploit it. Back in SAO the enemy NPCs too would monologue on and on about their evil plans, but back then they were save because of their Immortal Object status until their monologue ended, which the real life enemy sadly for Kuyou didn't have. Kirito didn't believe that this attack won him the fight, but it would definitely make it a lot easier.
And Mizore too hadn't been slouching off. Kaito was so stunned by seeing her leader getting carved open that she froze for a few seconds and Mizore wasn't going to waste such an opportunity. They had threatened her and her Kirito and they were going to pay for it. While Kuyou's blood was still flying in the air from Kirito's slash attack, Mizore had formed three ice cycles and shot them at Kaito, transforming her hands into claws at the same time to be ready for a possible close quarters fight against her.
Which she didn't get, because Kaito for all her superior behavior didn't even react until she was pierced by the ice attack and with three hits on her body, spread over her left leg, her stomach and her right shoulder she was already out of the fight before it even really began. She would probably survive the injuries, but that would only be possible if she got no further hits on her body and even if Kirito and Mizore wouldn't go after her, there was a pretty good chance that a stray fire or ice attack would hit her. Summarized: she was in an absolutely shitty position were either friend or foe could end her and the fight hadn't even really started yet.
While Kaito tried her best to crawl away from the epicenter of the fight, Kuyou was coming to terms with the fact that his opponent was able to draw blood against him and even worse, it wasn't some last ditch attack at the end of a fight, no, it was the opening of it and for the first time in a long while it was not Kuyou who drew first blood or in his case landed the first attack and incinerated his foe.
"How dare you attack me like this!" Kuyou all but screamed and made ready to launch a fire enhanced fist at Kirito. For wounding his body like this he would make the boy in front of him suffer and if he couldn't get him to suffer then he at least wanted to feel as his fist impacted the body, turning it to ash as his fires burned through him. But it never came to that, while Kirito was rather easily able to dodge the, he had to concede that to him, fast and probably deadly punch, he hadn't needed to bother with it, because just as Kuyou was halfway through the motions of his attack Mizore's fist introduced itself to Kuyou's face from the side.
Kuyou had in his rage at being hit completely ignored that his subordinate had been defeated and consequently was not prepared for a second enemy to join his fight. No, he had been solely concentrated on Kirito to make sure he couldn't land a second surprise attack and forgot completely about Mizore.
Sadly for the two ice monsters Kuyou was a rather strong monster, which meant that the slash, the rattled brain and the broken nose would be inconvenient for him, but he was still far away from a knock-out.
After delivering the punch and hearing the satisfying crack of Kuyou's nose, Mizore found herself back at Kirito's side, ready to defend or attack with him.
"Nice punch Mizore, maybe you even managed to knock some sense into that damn asshole, and nice work with the other one." Kirito said to Mizore, all the while never turning his eyes away from Kuyou, searching for an opening or a sign for a future attack as his mouth went upwards into a smirk.
"No problem, but Kaito was way to stunned from you showing Kuyou that your powers were the genuine article, as to even react to me." And here she herself allowed a little smirk to appear on her lips. The second week at her home during the holidays and all the training the two of them had done since the incident with the Yetis had really paid of, before that she would have probably been too slow or to out of it from Kuyou's declaration to utilize the opening she had gotten from her opponent.
Now she wasn't that much stronger, but she used the strength she had a lot better and her awareness for openings and weaknesses the enemies showed her had increased.
And that edge was probably the only reason that she reacted fast enough to jump backwards and evade the flame wall that went up where she was standing seconds ago. Kirito too was able to evade the attack, but the grim look on his face told her that the fight was far from over and probably got one hell of a lot harder.
When the flames vanished she also understood why Kirito showed that expression. Kuyou had reverted back into his monster? form. At least she believed that it was his monster form, since he definitely changed, but the strange thing was that he was still shrouded in flames so that only a rough form of him was visible, and that form looked still pretty human.
Once the flames died down a bit further she recognized that his form wasn't human at all. Starting from his legs, up to his torso it looked like he consisted of flames and his chest and face were now showing tribal style markings. Sprouting from his head were also two flame fox ears which now made identifying him pretty easy, though it didn't help them in the slightest.
Kuyou was a Yukou, a spirit fox, one of the strongest Yokai that existed. And Mizore was feeling that power now. The temperature around them steadily increased and the Yoki he was pouring out would have sent a middle class monster into coma, if they were to try and do the same for longer than a few scant seconds.
Mizore froze on the spot, some part of her brain was trying to tell her to move, to attack or flee, but the sheer aura and KI Kuyou was projecting had her frozen up.
Kirito didn't suffer from the same problem, he was almost used to monsters that were stronger than him. The gap he felt when he compared his strength to Kuyou now after he had transformed was new, but he didn't freeze up and his brain did what it did best in such a situation: It searched with 95% capacity a solution to his problem, which at the moment was survival and used the last 5% for a witty sentence to smack into his foes face.
"Whoever gave you your name must have been a hell of a lot creative when he chose Kuyou, you could almost call that a good anagram for Yukou!" …yeah, Kirito's 5% weren't too witty, but it at least broke Mizore out of her frozen state, which he could tell by her snort about his line and the gaping afterwards that he could say something like that in face of such a monster. He would probably get an earful for that later.
Kuyou himself was stupefied for a few scant seconds and than his rage practically tripled and he roared at the two: "I SHOW YOU MY FINAL FORM AND YOU DARE TO MOCK ME?! YOU, YOU PUNNY LITTLE WASTE OF BREATH?! I COULD EASELY SQUASH YOU! LOOK AT YOURSELF! JUST BEING NEAR ME AND THE NATURAL INCREASE IN TEMPERATURE THAT COMES WITH THIS FORM IS ENOUGH TO END YOU TWO AND YOU STILL DARE TO MOCK ME!?" Not only his rage increased, it seamed like that with his anger, the temperature too increased and was slowly becoming a problem for the two Yuuki-Onna/-Oni.
"Maybe that was not the best choice of action" Mizore whisper/deadpanned at Kirito who slightly nodded his head as answer, still searching for a way out of this and deciding that he would hold the longest nap of his life after he survived this fight.
-_-_-(With the rescue committee[better known as rest of the Newspaper Club])-_-_-
"I knew this was a stupid idea!"
"Oh shut up Gin, you didn't have too come with us and are still free to go if you're that afraid." Kurumu answered with only a slight bit of annoyance, since she too had felt the massive wave of Yoki that came from their rescue target area.
"As if I could let you go on alone after I felt that." Gin grumpily replied, but all of them knew that he would not turn around now, after they had come so far.
Just another turn and if Gin had been correct, they would be in front of Kuyou's special dungeon where he normally took his 'suspects with special personal interest' and he was sure that Kirito qualified as that.
"Okay girls, careful now, the few PASC members we took out on our way, are nothing compared to Kuyou. He should be around that corner, so be careful. Don't want to lose any more members to him." Gin had muttered the last part, but Kurumu had still heard him and frowned quite a bit at that.
After a second to collect himself Gin rounded the corner and was immediately pushed back again by a wave of hot air that told him two things: They were at the right place and Kirito, 'Yes it was definitely Kirito and not Mizore' Gin absently thought, had managed to make Kuyou angry enough for him to change into his true form.
Gin and the three girls with him rounded the corner a second time and were all thinking about how the hell they were supposed to land an attack, not even thinking about defeating, the monster in front of them, that had his back turned to them, but was radiating such high levels of heat that even coming near him seemed pretty impossible at the moment.
Just before Gin could compare the pros and cons of a suicide attack the temperature in the room dropped from one second to the other to freezing levels and he heard a voice that sent a shiver down his spine and convinced him and the others to hide behind the corner and evaluate their situation by listening in about what was happening.
-_-_-(A few minutes before Gin contemplates a kamikaze attack)-_-_-
Kirito was despairing a tinny, tinny bit right about now. He had managed, after producing an ultra-cold sword and with Mizore using the last of her strength as distraction to wound Kuyou a third time, but compared to the first two hits from him and Mizore it was really nothing more then a scratch to Kuyou and all three of them knew it. All his other attacks had been meaningless because they melted before he got even close enough with one of his normal ice swords or spears.
Kuyou had yet to land a hit, but that was only a matter of time now and again, all three of them knew it. The heat was sucking their energy and strength away and most of their attacks melted away well before they came anywhere near Kuyou. The only reason that they were still in the fight was probably that Kuyou didn't want to destroy his HQ and didn't use any wide area attacks that the two of them wouldn't have been able to evade.
And the exhaustion showed at the worst moment, when Mizore was too slow to evade the next superheated fireball that Kuyou had thrown at her.
She didn't even have the strength left for a last ditch effort such as an ice wall to try and block it. Her perception of the world slowed, as thought as to prolong whatever time she had left before it all ended with the element that was the complete opposite to her own.
Thanks to that slow motion move, she could clearly see the different shades the fire had, the flicker of it, how it grew bigger and bigger as it got nearer and nearer and how ever so slowly another body placed itself between her and the oncoming death.
Mizore's brain at first couldn't comprehend what had happened, hell it couldn't even comprehend how it was still able to work at the moment, but after that one second of complete stop to all thought processes it started to work again.
'Kirito'
'Kirito'
'Kirito!' He had thrown himself in front of her to block the attack that was meant to end her. He had sacrificed himself for her again. First he made a deal with a devil to save her and now again he saved her without a thought about what could happen to him.
Again, she had lost her friend. Again, she had lost her love interest. Again, she was alone.
She almost got catatonic. She didn't care that Kuyou was spouting about how he had wanted to kill Kirito last to see the suffering on his face that now showed on hers, she didn't care that she had almost no strength left, she didn't care that she was crawling to Kirito who was so badly burned and still radiated heat. She didn't care that, because she was crawling on the floor that just got set on fire, her legs got burned.
All that mattered was that she was able to reach Kirito. To tell him that she had wanted to be his girlfriend, that she had almost worked up the courage to ask him, that she had hoped to marry him after school if the girlfriend thing worked out. To be able to hold his hand for one last time and to tell him that she was sorry for not being strong enough.
Kuyou looked at her with disgust. He had wanted to see the boy as broken as the girl now was. He had just lost his revenge. With distaste he sent another fireball at the clearly unresponsive girl and turned to walk away.
Mizore didn't care about the fact that another Fireball was coming her way. She didn't give a response to it in the slightest. But still, the Fireball, bringer of a painful end never reached the distraught and despaired Yuuki-Onna. It was stopped by an ice spear that appeared in its path from the ground. Again Mizore didn't notice that, but she notice that Kirito was moving again. First she could feel movement in the hand she had grabbed. Then she felt a shudder move through Kirito's entire body. And then to her unbelieving eyes, Kirito, her Kirito began to stand up again. As he did so, his body started to emit a cold, white mist and the temperature dropped several degrees and continued falling until it had reached freezing levels.
Mizore's body welcomed the climate change, but her consciousness was completely fixed on Kirito who now stood in front of her, again between her and Kuyou, but now he seemed like a completely different person. Not to mention the Yoki that he had started to emit, which now could easily rival the amount Kuyou was giving out.
Another change was his hair, which was now snow-white and gave of a slight glow. She was so transfixed on his, in her opinion, beautiful snowy hair and the fact that he had miraculously healed that it took her a few seconds until she noticed his eyes.
His mesmerizing beautiful onyx eyes, where she could so easily lose herself in were completely devoid of any color. He looked at her with those midnight black eyes and after a few seconds he placed a hand on her head and began to speak in a voice that was not his own and sounded demonic and feminine? "Don't worry child, I just healed the worst of his and your injuries."
After saying that and Mizore noticing that almost all of her wounds and pains were gone Kirito? turned around and faced Kuyou, who after the first drop in temperature had turned around again and was frozen on the spot. Never before had he felt like this. Never before had he frozen up in front of someone. But now, now his instincts were screaming at him to run. Not that he listened to them, he was the apex of the Yokai species, the strongest, the mightiest, he was justice incarnate and therefore it was impossible for him to be defeated, so why should he run?
The fact that it was now freezing cold and that that meant Kirito? was completely suppressing Kuyou's powers never entered his mind, too shocked was he when he first heard the voice of his victim to be and felt the gulf that was between his powers and the powers the boy in front of him was emitting.
"You little fire fox dared to awaken ME FROM MY SLUMBER?! You unworthy little thing dared to think that you could defeat and extinguish my container!? After all the work I did to synch him with me and make him inhabitable?!"
Kuyou could not utter a sound as he stared at the monster in front of him, that now so clearly outclassed him.
"You thought you could take from me my way to freedom and the one that freed me?! I THINK NOT! When you reach hell or wherever you might land, TELL THEM SERENA SENDS HER REGARDS!" and with the last word Kuyou finally noticed the mist that now shrouded most of him and seemed to be sucking out any warmth he had left in his body. He tried to move away, tried to generate a fire to disperse the mist, tried to shout, but he could do nothing. He had lost to much power and energy to the mist already and as the last sounds from Serena registered in his brain he could also feel himself draw his last breath.
Mizore watched in wonder as Kuyou collapsed and stopped moving altogether after the mist from Serena, she now finally remembered that Kirito had a tenant, had reached and enshrouded him while she was talking to him.
The next thing Mizore knew Kirito too collapsed. Before he could connect with the floor Mizore somehow managed to catch him. She had never even noticed that she stood up or reached him/her with her arms, to her it was just, one moment he/she was offing Kuyou and the next he/she was in her arms.
"Thank you child, that one attack took a lot more out of me than I would have liked, if that pompous fox hadn't been scared shitless and instead moved out of the way, he could have given even me some problems, since I'm still only at around half my normal power levels and can't even use more then that because I'm still not synched completely with your Kirito here. It will probably take some time before he wakes up again after this ordeal. Now I have to run damage management of his body, so it falls to you and your four friends around the corner to get me and Kirito out of here alive. Take good care of him, it would be a shame if all my hard work would have been for naught." And with that Kirito went limp in her arms and she finally discovered her other friends that Serena had pointed out for her, who were now hurrying over to help.
-_-_-(Infirmary)-_-_-
"And I distinctly remember telling him to be more careful." The doctor said with a sight after Mizore and the others had managed to bring Kirito into the infirmary and placed him on a bed. Mizore wasn't sure if the doctor was scolding her Kirito or if he was just mumbling to himself, at least his body language didn't indicate that he was annoyed. Probably …
"Well, we did try to evade danger, but it seems to have a knack in finding Kirito. –" Mizore wanted to continue, but the doctor interrupted her: "Don't worry, I'm not angry, if the school didn't have students like him what would I be doing with my time? Be that as it may, your friend is actually in pretty good shape. His injuries, whatever they were have healed and as far as my knowledge of the snow people goes, indicates that his readings are okay too." He moved his finger over a few points on a sheet that seemed to appear from thin air, because Mizore, and she was pretty sure her friends too, never saw the doctor getting it.
"And since those readings are okay, the only problem he has is his abysmal low Yoki level. Whatever he did burned almost completely through his reserves and it will probably take until the end of school in two weeks until he wakes up again. He will probably be up and about by the time your club instructor wants to take you all to the human world to scout out the location known as witch hill."
That startled Moka, "How do you know about that? Professor Shizuka told me about that only this morning and I still wasn't able to tell the others about it."
Instead of answering her his mouth formed into a Cheshire smile and Moka decided that she didn't want to know about the ways the doctor got to know about it.
"So I have other patients to look after and he" pointing a finger at Kirito, "just needs time to rest and isn't in danger, which means you lot have until closing hours to be with him. Goodbye."
The group gave their own goodbyes as answer and acquired some chairs that were standing in the vicinity and seated themselves next to the sleeping Kirito. It was first Mizore who told them what had happened to Kirito and her and afterwards Moka and Kurumu told them how they came after them to help, defeating Kuyou's thugs on their way and how they felt the cold once Serena made herself known.
They were able to finish their respective stories just as the closing hour began.
-_-_-(two weeks later)-_-_-
Mizore was well and truly excited. According to the doctor Kirito should wake up today and as far as he was able to tell her Kirito should be in pretty much perfect health, maybe a bit sore, but nothing that would hinder his participation on the club trip that was planned for tomorrow.
And she was really looking forward to that trip. Over the two weeks without Kirito her resolve had hardened and she was now surer than ever before; she wanted Kirito. She had missed him a lot during the last two weeks, even though she spent a lot of her free time with him in the infirmary when school was over for the day or in the mornings before it started.
But now it was finally time. He had slept a bit longer than the first prognosis had been, but he should be up and about in the next few hours. Her other friends weren't with her, but would join her later since she was skipping class at the moment.
She had feared that the doctor would send her away, but he had just looked at her, gave one wistful smile and had ignored her since. But back to her first thoughts. Starting tomorrow she would have finally the chance to develop her relationship with Kirito. She was sure, that during their trip she would definitely get the chance to ask him out and if she timed it right, it could even happen beneath the stars under the black night with the moon as their witness.
Yes, today would definitely be a good, no, a great day. She would finally be able to talk to Kirito again and it would also mark the start of their relationship as boyfriend and girlfriend, even if she would ask him a bit later.
While she sat there she also remembered what she did beside visiting Kirito in his bed in the infirmary. She had continued her training and since she wanted something to distract her, she had been ceaselessly about it. Her control over her ice had improved, as well as her stamina, strength and reflexes.
And as she thought about that, she would have almost missed the moment when someone finally returned to the land of the living. But the twitching of his hand let her react just fast enough to turn her head and look into his still closed eyes, until they finally, almost painfully slow, opened and as she again lost herself in his beautiful eyes, she saw his mouth starting to part and heard his first words in over two weeks.
"Mizore"
"Kirito" she got out while happy tears streamed down her face.
AN:
Yeaaaah, hello again, been quite some time, huh. But I finally have this chapter so please tell me what your thoughts are about it. I hope it is still up to snuff and that I didn't completely fuck up the fighting scene, but it was pretty hard to write. Short as it was, I gave may best and hope you enjoyed it. A reason why it was rather short is because of the elemental advantages (Fire vs Ice) which pretty effectively neutralized Kirito's sword skills.
I hope to have another chapter out in the next 2-3 weeks and I will also be working on another chapter for Swords and Scythes, though I will probably only post that one once I have written some more for that fic.
About the things that I read on FF that took up quite a bit of my free time that I still have after studying: that was mainly the Harry Potter fandom, with stories that had either a dark and evil Dumbles, Luna as a main Character or where Harry was adopted into the Black family or got together with a Black OC that is a child from either Sirius or Bellatrix (Whoever likes HP fics and still hasn't read Delenda Est or Trouble should really change that !)
I also devoured quite a few Naruto fics with either Haku or Fuù as a main Character ^.^
As I write this last line I am enjoying my holidays in Italy and hope that you all are enjoying yourselves too (maybe even thanks to this new chapter) and that the shitty Wlan here is enough to upload this chapter
P.S.: After someone pointed it out: Kirito is a Yuuki-Oni and I changed that in the previous chapter
