Short Preview: Featuring Yui, the most adorable AI ever.

Chapter 11: Lies, Greed, Misery

His arms always made her feel so safe.

The two of them were currently laying comfortably on the couch and Kazuto's home, with the lights off and the television quietly glowing off to the side to keep them company. The shows playing on the screen had long since been ignored by the couple however, in favor of cuddling up close to each other and falling asleep. Asuna had awoken first though, and didn't have the heart to ruin her boyfriend's adorable sleeping face.

Smiling, Asuna gently leaned her head back and turned it to brush her soft cheek agains this nose. She was laying on her side, Kazuto mimicking her position, holding her close to his chest where she could feel his steady heartbeat thudding against her back. It made for a soothing lullaby, which was why Asuna had managed to sleep until this time of day. She still didn't want to wake her partner though, so here she lay, assuming Kazuto was fast asleep.

That was, until she felt his lips on her ear.

Twitching at the unexpected touch, Asuna scoffed and said, "I thought you were asleep."

"I'm a master of deception," Kazuto murmured into her ear, his warm breath tickling the skin there in a way that made Asuna's stomach feel funny. Adjusting his position, he pulled her tighter to him and continued, "Have you been awake long?"

"No, not long."

"Glad," Kazuto replied, still sounding a bit sleepy from his prolonged nap. "You're soft, Asuna," He added seemingly out of nowhere.

Blushing at the compliment, the girl stammered, "Ah...um, thank you."

Asuna felt his lips ghost over the ridge of her ear slowly, deliberately. She just barely managed to keep a squeak from escaping past her lips, but a bit of it still made it out, drawing an amused chuckle from her partner.

"Gosh, Kazu-kun, you're such a tease," Asuna pouted.

"It's one of my many endearing traits," Kazuto laughed before kissing her earlobe and closing the tips of his lips around it gently.

"Ahhhn~" Asuna keened, squirming slightly as an electrical shock traveled through her brain like a tingly feeling, and the funny feeling in her stomach intensified. Now blushing up a storm, the girl panted, "Kazuto..."

"Yes?" Her boyfriend asked simply around her soft, vulnerable flesh, before dragging his tongue about an inch up the outside edge of the ear and blowing on it gently.

"Ahh!" Asuna moaned at last, her knees pressing together desperately to contain herself as one hand involuntarily reached up so she could bite her finger in anticipation. Kazuto hummed in content and rewarded her for her satisfactory reactions by lovingly kissing his way from his mate's cute ears to the exposed skin of her neck, letting his hot tongue sting the veins their for a moment to draw out another involuntary moan. Now squirming aggressively against him, Asuna managed to get her tongue straight for long enough to say,

"Kazu...please...kiss me."

Only a moment later, his lips came to claim hers, relinquishing his hold on her from behind in order to pull Asuna on top of him and mesh their mouths together, tongues and lips slipping among themselves. The girl keened and adjusted herself to straddle him, hips nearly meeting perfectly as she reached up to tangle her fingers between the locks of his messy hair, pulling his mouth even closer.

"God...damn..." Kazuto groaned, caught off guard by how quickly his girlfriend had adapted to the situation without becoming completely flustered. She was starting to learn. "Asuna...I..."

Asuna only moaned incoherently back in response, too lost in that part of one's mind that existed solely for pleasure to form actual words. Not to mention that their tongues were already hopelessly tangled together, preventing any further forms of speech. During the course of their fervent embrace, the place where she straddled him shifted constantly, bringing to the forefront of Asuna's attention concrete proof that her mate was, indeed, aroused. Her heartbeat nearly quadrupled when she felt the strange hardness against the inside of her thigh, but she took it in stride, accepting it as a part of her lover's anatomy.

By this point, hands were straying to places they hadn't been before, heartbeats were overloading, the heat was building, and judgement was beginning to cloud considerably. And the best part was, neither of them had the slightest thought of restraining themselves. It probably would have gone on for a while, too, if Asuna's phone hadn't started to ring.

Kazuto immediately groaned in frustration and paused his movements to allow Asuna to pick it up, but the girl just whined lowly and buried her nose into his neck. "Just ignore it..." She murmured, kissing the vein and making the skin there jump.

Kazuto stole a glance at the caller ID on the phone.

"Asuna, it's your mom."

She paused.

Then groaned in frustration before leaning over to swipe the device off the floor and answer it. "Yes, mama? What? The news? Why now? Well, alright..."

Reaching for the remote, she flipped the channel till it landed on a news station.

The headline read, BREAKING NEWS: SWORD ART ONLINE SERVERS TO BE TERMINATED

Only one thought crossed their minds.

Yui...

The frigid, spiteful wind of the winter cold whipped through the landscape like an endless stampede of frenzied horses. The temperatures were inhumanely low, and the view the area provided was nothing short of distasteful. The very sky was blotted out by the maelstrom of snow flakes, more like miniature icicles, whirled across the atmosphere above. There was nothing but white, about and before, left and right, all consuming. Nothing could escape from it.

Except for Yui, who was immune to the cold and the sights.

A fact that she loathed with all her might.

Reaching down, the small girl dug her hand into the layer of freshly laid ice thrown there by the unforgiving wind. She was currently sitting atop a small hill formed by the blizzard raging around her, essentially a massive mound of ice which had accumulated over time to form into this. Gritting her teeth in frustration, the AI curled her fingers inside the small pile of snow she'd dug up to encase her hand, trying desperately the feel the pain such a drastic level of cold brought. But nothing penetrated her consciousness but a general feeling of coolness, but not the cruel bite of frost that Yui had hoped for, yearned for.

Sighing, she pulled her hand out of the snow and held it up before her, forced to squint to make out the small appendage in the dim light of the snow-covered sky. There was no moon in the sky of the one-hundred floor of Aincrad, and neither was there a sun. No, the Red Ruby Castle lying in the distance provided all the light this floor had; a fortress crafted entirely of an indestructible form of the precious gemstone, gleaming with the force of a thousand suns. The reach of its radiance spanned countless miles and lit up an unfathomable expanse without the aid of any astronomical bodies, but there were still areas of the floor it failed to illuminate. Namely, the area Yui had chosen to dwell in today.

Continuing to squint at her hand, Yui began to closely examine the unscathed fingers. No matter how much punishment she could put that appendage and its five fingers through, nothing could harm it. No matter how many strikes from a boss it took or how long it was exposed to a blizzard akin to the one currently screaming across the landscape, it would emerge undeterred. The reason for this, however, was something Yui did not feel she had to right to object to; after all, the fall of Kayaba Akihiko had brought about this change.

Ever since Kazuto Kirigaya, alias Kirito or the Black Swordsman, had miraculously cleared Sword Art Online, the only power Yui was accountable to answer to was the Cardinal System of Aincrad. However, her father's conversion of Yui's purpose to an Inanimate Object had saved her from most of Cardinal's persecutions against her as an alien entity in the game, and thus she was safe. This made her an essentially invincible element in Aincrad, something that should not exist in any game. Not that Yui harbored any malicious intents, but certain factions were inclined to think negatively towards the very idea regardless. Not to mention, since only a pitifully meager amount of non NPC players remained after the defeat of Kayaba Akihiko, her original purpose as an emotional monitor was also out of the question. So here she was, sitting atop a frozen hill in the one hundredth floor, a floor no one could or ever would reach, simply because she could.

Although her avatar had initially been left within the ALO universe once her parents had been forced to leave behind the world of VR for an extended period, Yui had soon discovered she wielded the ability to travel between the worlds. After all, the floating castle existed within the world of ALfheim. She still preferred her SAO form to this day, as she had more absolute control here. If she wished to fly, she could. No wings needed.

"Papa...Mama..." Yui murmured softly, laying back on the side of the frigid hill, feeling her small body sink an inch or so into the freshly compacted snow. As the turbulence around her pulled the girl's hair every which way, Yui's eyes remained fixated on her hand, as if her life depended on it. Then she frowned again and let it drop to the snow.

Of course, she knew why her parents were not around anymore. As she existed within Kirito's NerveGear, she'd felt the massive amounts of brain damage her father was sustaining after such a ridiculously extended time in-game. Despite being an AI, it was well within Yui's knowledge that such injuries would require extensive medical attention, as well as some form of abstinence. The underuse, or complete lack of use, of her father's NerveGear only furthered her suspicions, serving to confirm them. And if Kirito had undergone such suffering, her mother would have as well. Yui had no idea how long her parents would be forced to abstain from VR, but she fervently wished that the time would finally come where they would don the specs once more and come to see their lonely daughter.

Briefly, and for the thousandth time, Yui wondered what her parents looked like now. Her memories of their faces were of over eight months ago, and the girl was sure their appearances would have changed. Did Aincrad's settings still display players with their true IRL appearances? She wasn't sure. It had already occurred to Yui that her worries were both fruitless and too mature for her age. Not many bit-sized AI's thought about such things. Her mental functioning was that of a child, after all. But there was some sort of emptiness inside of Yui's heart that had formed over months of long abandonment, a hole that had, over time, spawned a sort of maturity totally uncharacteristic of her.

Sitting up in the snow, Yui looked to her right, at the faint crimson glow of the Red Ruby Castle in the far distance. A child artificial intelligence worrying about her parents like a concerned mother, she thought drily. How lop-sided. Just another sign of the fact that no matter how much she yearned to meet her parents, no matter how much she tried to act like a normal child, in the end she was an artificial intelligence, a product of science, created for a greater purpose, a fake.

Groaning, Yui turned and laid on her belly, shoving her face into the snow to block everything out. She had been incredibly thankful to Kirito and Asuna for allowing her the chance to be like an actual human being, a part of a family that very much loved each other. Family. Love. Human. Things she could pretend to have but would never truly fathom. Yui knew she was part of a family, but it wasn't one that was socially accepted or even known of. She loved her parents, and they loved her, but it was a sort of taboo relationship, something not generally approved of, like loving an AI was a crime against humanity.

Humanity.

Something she was not.

I wanna heal, I wanna feel

What I thought was never real

I wanna let go of the pain I've felt so long

Yui could recall a time, some days ago, when she'd awoken from a terrible nightmare and was forced to run crying to the room of the caretaker of an inn she frequented. In the nightmare her parents had started a family of their own, and over time had forgotten about her, never returning to visit her, deciding that her very existence was something best left untouched. Yui had been forced to watch, somehow restrained from moving or speaking, as they gave birth to a new daughter, a faceless daughter, a replacement daughter. An accepted daughter.

A human daughter.

Despite being designed for a wholly video-game oriented environment, Yui had been programmed to start out with plenty of information about the real world in order to be able to imitate the actions of players and relate with them, such as on topics only concerning the real world. Due to this, she was well aware that a couple claiming to have a daughter who lived in a virtual reality was something that would could quite an uproar. Being the cause of grief for her parents was the last thing Yui wanted, but it made her sick every time to think that perhaps she was somehow holding them back from enjoying life to the fullest.

When her father had valiantly made a solo attempt to clear the World Tree mission by taken on hundreds of thousands of guardians in ALO, he had been slain. Then, as his soul lay burning, hovering, in the air, Yui had heard his thoughts. He'd scoffed at himself quietly, thinking, I thought I could overcome the rules of the game. I thought I could do anything I wanted.

But in the end, my strength is simple numbers and status effects.

"I guess I understand what you mean, Papa," Yui murmured to herself as the frigid winds curled around her relentlessly. "Thought I could be a human...but just a product of science..."

I wanna heal, I wanna feel like I'm close to something real

I wanna find something I've wanted all along

Somewhere I belong...

Once the SAO crisis had been resolved and her parents' absence became prominent, Yui had initiate intended to take up permanent residence within their home deep within the forests of the twenty-second floor. This she did, but soon enough a sense of boredom and a longing for change seized the young girl's heart. The NPCs that lived around the lake were good and kind people, but she wanted something more, something more worth her while.

This resulted in what ended with a full tour of all one hundred floors of the floating castle, utilizing her Admin authority to appear anywhere however she pleased. It gave her mind a sort of occupation, during the long lonely months of waiting, to see the sights Aincrad had to offer when it wasn't about to kill you. Frozen tundras lifeless since the day they'd been programmed, and scorching deserts where the sun ruled all and night was nonexistent. A world consisting entirely of ocean, with no speck of land to be found safe for a single, central island. A floor covered with carnivorous plants. A world of massive animals and miniature towns.

Due to the extent of her travels, Yui often felt the need to stop by somewhere safe when night fell. Sure, she had Admin authority, but her programming still forced her to seek shelter at certain times, or fall victim to the need for sleep outside. Being ambushed by a monster in the dead of night was not the worst possible thing that could happen to her, but it was certainly an annoyance to be avoided. This meant staying at inns, and Yui tended to frequent one situated on the seventy seventh floor. The advanced floor level meant the rooms themselves were of good quality, and since the more difficult floors tended to be more interesting to explore, its situation was of great convenience.

Two weeks after her foray to the final floor of the floating castle, Yui woke up in her usual cot at her favorite inn, The Wandering Traveler. It was owned by an NPC named Greta, a middle-aged looking woman with streaks of grey beginning to show up in her hair. During the months she had wandered Aincrad and made various acquaintances, it had been brought to Yui's attention that age was something that did not exist here. Such a fact had led to some rather awkward conversations with Greta, as the woman often spoke of the days when she was young and beautiful, a time that never existed, only pre-programmed to be believed. But the caretaker was a good person who provided intriguing discourse, so Yui kept coming back.

It was a beautiful day outside when Yui sleepily pushed open the door to her room and shuffled slowly down the hall in a long nightgown that trailed behind her for six inches. The well-trod wooden planks of the inn's flooring creaked gently beneath her feet as she made her way through, signaling that they had endured their own use over time, but had seen a rather small amount of trampling as of late.

Although all revenue-generating establishments remained open since the clearing of the game, there was obviously a stunning lack of players to provide said revenue, leading to the formation of several "ghost towns" throughout the floors, where even the NPCs tended to stay inside rather than dwell the streets, as their primary purpose of mingling with the players was impossible to achieve. While Yui was unaware of the nine-month ban from VR for all SAO victims, she was fully aware that the players of ALO were totally capable of entering the floating castle. But she knew that the place was a sort of taboo now, a place where bad things happened and only the strong survived. Misconceptions spawned through evil.

Greta was cooking up breakfast in the kitchen behind the counter of the general cafeteria, the aroma spreading throughout the entire establishment, despite the fact that cooking in SAO was performed through movements with cutlery. Crossing through the deserted tables of the cafeteria, Yui pushed open the doors to the kitchen and joined the caretaker at the island.

"Ohayo," The aged women called over her shoulder, not even needing to look to know who it was. After all, no one else stayed here. "I hope you feel like pancakes."

"Isn't that the only thing on your menu anyway?" Yui asked tiredly, rubbing at her eyes with tiny fists.

Great chuckled. "Yet you always wolf it down like it's your last meal."

Ten minutes later, Yui was sitting eagerly at one of the tables as Greta walked over with a steaming plate of freshly baked pancakes. The woman set the plate before her young charge and wished her a good meal, before leaving to perform the duties her internal clock required her to do.

Licking her lips in anticipation, Yui picked up her utensils and began to dig in. Of course, there was no real need for her to eat anything, but it was just a drive she had. Part of being an AI.

"Mmmn," The girl sighed as the soft, syrup coated warmth of the pancake passed her lips and was swiftly pulled down the throat in order fit in more of its brethren. Keeping up the pace, she proceeded to tear the breakfast apart like, quote, "it was her last meal."

Her pace of consumption slowed, however, when she recalled her own words: "Isn't that the only thing on your menu anyway?"

Well, for Yui, there wasn't. Besides pancakes, Greta also was able to offer spicy sandwiches, but those were a bit too emotionally painful for her to eat.

Besides, they tasted nasty in comparison to her mother's.

Today, Yui decided she wanted to revisit one of the lower floors in Aincrad; the 47th, home of the legendary Pneuma Flower, which had regrown and stood just as proudly as it had when Kirito and Silica had plucked it years ago. The usual sweeping expanse of beautiful flowers laid around it, covering the entire floor with their unique fragrance, the scent of millions and millions of flowers mixed together to form a perfume only nature could produce.

After materializing in the portal and walking through the initial entrance to the Flower Garden, Yui teleported to her favorite spot in the entire floor. It was hill, much like the frigid one within the domain of the Red Ruby Castle, only this one was covered with short, smooth grasses that were shaded by the protective arms of a sakura tree. A gentle wind kissed the landscape every now and then, shaking free a few of the pink petals to drift downwards in a prolonged spiral that Yui spent her time watching.

Upon reaching the spot, she laid down under the shade and closed her eyes, planning on resuming her sleep after that wonderful pancake. Here she could relax. Here she could just-

The small flower bulbs sprouting around her withered and died.

Immediately attentive, Yui sat up without the strength of her arms and cast about the view before her. Meanwhile, the plants growing beside her continued to perish, turning from a lush green to a sick, infected yellow, before finally falling into a black shade that could only connote instant death. The wave of expiration soon reached the roots of the cherry blossom, the tree itself groaning in pain as its roots began to rot on the spot.

Looking about wildly, Yui scrambled to her feet to escape from the wave of devastation like she was afraid it would affect her as well. Standing tall, she tried to slow her breathing. If it was a monster, she could deal with it handily. But something like this was unprecedented. Also, deep inside her gut, Yui felt a very human emotion seize her within.

Fear. An irrational fear of the unknown.

And at last, its source made an appearance.

At first all Yui could see was the top of his head as he made his way up to hill, taking his time as if without a care in the world. Once his entire skull was within view, she could see that it was well hidden by a dark cloak and hood, the cuffs and rims of the garb fluttering ominously about that man's figure despite the lack of wind. A dark essence seemed to emanate from him, like a sickness that escaped like sweat from his pores, and it became apparent to Yui that this was the source of the death around her.

The man stopped his ascent just before he reached the crest of the hill, and looked up at her, showing everything but his eyes and brow to the small girl. Above, the clouds began to twist in agony and roil together, moving to blot out the sun. The brightness of the day darkened considerably, and the temperature went with it, bringing a foreboding chill to the air. Yui narrowed her eyes and stared back hard at this mysterious intruder, mentally preparing to summon a form of self-defense if need be. She could materialize the strongest weapon in the game and slay this killer in three seconds, if it came to that.

Assuming he wasn't human, in which case, she probably would not be able to end his life.

The stalemate between them continued for a longer while, during which time the entire hill was reduced to a lifeless corpse of earth. All of the vivid, lush grass was now a lake of limp, blackened weeds, and every last leaf of the sakura tree had similarly suffered and disintegrated, leaving the branches bare and black as night. Blinking her gaze towards the loss for just a moment, she decided to be the first to speak.

"What do you want?"

The dead grass crunched underneath the stranger's feet as he grinned and took one step forward.

"I wish," He said in a deep, exotic voice, "To hold a conversation with you."

Yui narrowed her eyes at him.

"And what if I don't want to talk?"

The stranger's smile grew wider as he made his way all the way up the side of the hill and stood not three feet from her, grinning like a stupidly happy jackal. Yui spared a moment to throw a cursory glance at the stranger's HUD, and the name she read above the health bar made her heartbeat accelerate further.

"Don't you worry, little girl. I'm sure the topic of my discussion will interest you greatly," PoH said degradingly. "Care to take a listen?"

PoH. Former leader of the guild Laughing Coffin. Primary purpose: to kill opposing players indiscriminately. Known members: PoH, Johnny Black. Notes: All members are red players. Guild was broken up by the forces of the Divine Dragon Alliance and the Knights of Blood, with the assistance of the Black Swordsman. Thirty lives lost in-combat.

All of this information stormed through Yui's brain the moment she recognized the man and his hooded features. She'd never laid eyes on him personally before, but her father's memories and her wire into the game provided all the insight and recognition she needed.

"PoH," Yui voiced bluntly. A rather stark reply coming from someone who didn't look past eight years old, but this was a more mature Yui, someone who had had months to reflect. "Tell me then, what do you want? And while you're at it, what are you doing here?"

"Ah, well..." PoH began, "It concerns your parents."

The world held its breath.

"Go on," Yui said softly.

Smirking to himself, the red player explained, "If you ask me, young lady, it seems that the two of them are about to run into some rather unsavory course of events."

The flame of childish defiance rearing up inside of her, Yui clenched her fists and demanded, "Are you threatening my parents?"

"Yes," PoH said bluntly, and without hesitation. "I also have every means to carry out my threat, and I intend to, so listen carefully. Don't you want to know exactly how they will suffer?"

Gritting her teeth, the AI said nothing.

"Good. Now, first it will be necessary for you to understand my involvement with them outside of the virtual reality. You see, young lady, I am a very powerful man. Trillions of dollars and scores of men follow my every command. By utilizing my influence, I seem to have managed to buy the rights to the maintenance of the SAO servers."

The in-game criminal tilted his head just slightly at the girl's twisted expression and asked, "Curious yet? Thought as much. This world belongs to me now, just as it should. Your parents did a very cruel thing to me, young lady. They destroyed my dream of an undefeatable criminal empire. To control all of Aincrad through fear and the threat of death...that was my goal. And what did your petty father and mother do to that dream? Crushed it under their feet like a bug in the dust. I am not a bug."

"Then you're the dust," Yui scoffed back at him.

PoH snorted. "Such nerve for someone whose death is so near."

"Do you think you could kill me now?"

"Of course not. I also have total administrative power due to my new ownership of the servers, but going toe-to-toe with you would only result in a draw. Now of course, if someone were to delete the entire game from the outside, that would be completely different, wouldn't it?"

The AI's face paled at those last words, and her heartbeat went from overdrive to still.

"You can't be serious."

I want to see you choke on the lies

Swallow up your greed

"But I am," PoH replied, turning away, although failing to disguise the fact that his words dripped with malice. "I am going to end you, and your existence, along with the rest of this wretched world that somehow failed to give me what I wanted, despite its lack of limitations. And I'm going to make them watch, both of them, when I destroy the only thing they have left to hold dear within the virtual reality. I am going to break them. Bend their wills. And once their resolve has been shattered, I will leave them be. But for that to happen, you will have to die."

Suffer all alone in your misery,

Choke on the lies,

Swallow up your greed,

Suffer all alone in your misery

Please review if you have anything to say! ^_^ Do you guys think Yui was too OOC? Feedback is much appreciated.