THANKS FOR THE REVIEW'S!

I dont know exactly how I feel about this chapter, I was emotional when writing it.

FoxOnPie

Wildgirl404

MSAP Wiz

Flairina- True, but it definitely helped me pin down the characterization, and was good practice in writing in my writing style while still sticking to the facts. Plus, the extra practice helps.

Anju Makaa- Thanks!

Hope you enjoy the chapter.

Edit: Edited

Asunas P.O.V

He was so close. Right there! She reached for him, trying to grasp his hand. Just as her fingers were millimeters away, he was suddenly jerked right of her reach. Something was pulling him away from her; pulling him out of her reach. She jerked forward, just on more inch… one more centimeter she just barely touched his hand….

A sword out of nowhere came arcing towards her throat.

She woke up, breathing hard, gasping as if she had been running a marathon, her own hands grasping tightly at her own neck, as if trying to find her own pulse. Eyes franticly searching, darting madly from side to side, where was he? Hands searching blindly she crawled to her left

"Kirito…Kirito?"

She heard a soft sigh of sleep and finally grasped a cloth covered was sleeping beside her, face relaxed; lines of worry and hardship smoothed. Slightly too long black hair trailed behind his head as he nestled further into the covers. They were okay, safe and sound in their cabin on the 22nd floor.

His arm tightened around her side, unconsciously pulling her back down to the bed. Asuna knew that with this show of affection, her cheeks were burning embarrassingly bright. Gazing quietly, inwardly squealing

"I can't believe how adorable he is when he's asleep!"

He looked so young, and he was, younger than her at least. Gathering her courage, inwardly feeling an almost unbearable amount of both affection and love, that she couldn't hold it in anymore. Pulling her face towards his, taking in his deep breaths, his long eyelashes, and calm features. She darted forward and planted a kiss right on his nose. Leaning back to watch amusedly as he pulled his arms from the rumpled covers to rub a hand blearily across his face. In the middle of rubbing, one of his eyes blinked open and then upon seeing Asuna's smiling face, shouted inarticulately before jumping backwards and throwing himself from the warm comfort of the bed onto the cold hard floor.

Asuna couldn't help herself, she burst out into loud raucous peals of laughter.

Kirito;s pout surely didn't help, it was too adorable to be taken seriously. Though rather than sitting there and stewing in his own embarrassment he laughed with her. That was one of the things she loved about him, he's humble.

Still giggling she pulled herself up and twirled around arms spread,before stopping flinging them out behind her, hair looping lightly in the breeze trailing through the open window.

"Kirito-kun! Let's play outside today! Hm?"

Eyes trained on his, he only responded with a slight crinkle around his eyes as the corners of his lips pulled upwards into a smile.

Asuna dimpled at him and coyly blinked her eyes in his direction.

He stared, then shook his head when he realized that he hadn't really answered her.

"Yeah."

-linebreak—

"You know, Kirito-kun, I love you." She whispered lips close to his ear bent over his head as his head lay on her lap. He closed his eyes as if savoring the words, he looked upwards deep into her eyes and leaned upwards close to face hesitating only briefly before kissing her. She pressed her hands to sides of his face as the kiss deepened before she leaned back breathing slightly hard.

Below her, Kirito-kun pulled himself up and scooted back next to her. Without speaking they wrapped their arms around each other's waist and together they gazed out towards the setting sun; the varying hues of the sky running together like watercolors. Only what should have been a beautiful effect was ruined as it became a ruddy brown, rather than the normal varying hues.

Asuna frowned, and a when the wind blew, there was an unexpected chill to the air. "Kirito-kun"

She said turning to look in his direction but once her head finished the half rotation needed to face him and the nasty feeling that had been coming to her had the brunette on high alert. Head whipping around, she crushed her growing panic. He was around here, playing a joke on her.

No need to worry.

Quickly gathering the blanket and basket in her hands she heard a amused shout from behind her

"Asuna! C'mon!" She knew it.

Laughing she turned to him "Mou, Kirito you big dummy." Pout already in place as she jogged lightly over to him before dropping her things and giving him a big hug. He laughed holding her, and she could feel his chest rising with each cheerful exhale. Her arms were wrapped around his neck and her head rested against his cheek.

He felt a little cold, but she put it off as the newfound chill in the air as the sun set in the muddy, dried blood sky.

"Kirito-kun, we should bring Yui with us next time." She told him, heart warm. His reply was much dimmer in comparison, a muted "Yeah… next time…"

"Kirito-kun?"

He wasn't just cold, he was freezing. Her heart froze like she was paralyzed as she both heard and felt as a wet cough wracked its way out of his chest. Pulling back, she realized that dots of red had seeped through the dark cloth of his shirt, looking black and rotten against the fading light and dark cloth. The blood wasn't the crimson healthy color of fresh blood, but a scabbed brown. The color of old wounds turned sour. She pulled away in alarm, her hands rising to push against the rising tide of rust. When her hands came into contact with the tattered cloth, it simply fell away, as the cuts repeated and repeated until it simply disintegrated.

His chest. HIS CHEST. His chest had resurrected a deadly fissure in which the foul liquid was simply POURING out. That wasn't the only one however. One of the arms she had been holding onto simply crumbled away under her hand to become a bloody stump, roughly hewn to where she could see the bone.

Raising her hands to her face, blood smearing her hands, she fell backward. He coughed once more, blood spattering the now-dead grass beneath them. He stood there, as bones broke, and as his body fell apart. He was grimacing in pain, the earlier grin nothing but a dream. She watched as blood started making its way from his eyes, becoming nothing more than hollows; as his muscles disappeared as he became nothing more than a skeleton wrapped in tight flesh.

There couldn't be that much blood in the human body. Was her only thought.

Then suddenly she realized, This is what I always feared would happened to Kirito.

The chest wound, and the arm, from Kuradeel, the constant cuts and bruises that never showed in game. The various injuries that he would have accumulated from fighting all the time like he had. Then the weight loss, what she feared for his body in the real world, the bleeding from the eyes, nose and ears; what she thought would happen if he died in-game. Her fears for him, coming alive on his body.

She managed to turn away from those thoughts, and focus on was reaching for her, arms shaking even as tracks of gore dried on his face.

"Asuna, where are you?!" His panicked face whipping around as if to catch a glimpse of her, but unable to find her right in front of him. Arms desperately reaching for her, even as he was collapsing. It was amazing he had stayed standing for as long as he had.

"Right here", she managed to whisper, as she caught him in her arms.

He's so light.

"Asuna… it's just a dream right?" came suddenly.

She could only stare at him as he looked unseeingly at her "No, Kirito-kun...It's a nightmare."

"But we get out right, we get to go home…?"

"Yeah. Yeah we do."

"Thank goodness…" he trailed off.

She gently laid him down, and placed a kiss gently on his forehead, but she thought he definitely stopped breathing a while ago. He needed to know the answer before he could rest. But her?

She needed to wake up. Some kind of life was waiting for her, and she wouldn't fail him this time.

Feels really short, but I find it easier to write in short stints, and it lets me update more often.

Does this count as a cliff-hanger? If it does, sorry about that because it seems to be something that I have a habit of writing. Hope you enjoyed. I felt really sad writing this, and I hope I managed to keep them in character.

~A Muffin with a Mission