Disclaimer: I do not own Sword Art Online, nor do I own the worlds of H.P. Lovecraft.
Chapter 8: Day of Selection
With nothing but free time on their hands, Asuna and Kirito had logged back into ALO that morning to test out the power of Asuna's new sword. Before they were to meet up with Klein and a few of the others to go into the dungeons beneath the Mound in imp territory, the couple had decided to spend some time alone at their cabin in New Aincrad. They had a light brunch in the game with their virtual daughter, Yui and spent some time catching up on some of the other things that each happened to them while Kirito was away. Kirito mostly talked about some of the things that Kirito had learned at that technical conference he was at, and Asuna found most of what he talked about to be quite fascinating, even though there were a few things that had gone over her head. When they had finally finished eating, the three of them had gone over to the couch.
After a few minutes of cuddling against Kirito on the couch, Asuna began to feel a bit restless. "Yui, could you give me and your dad some time alone?"
"Sure, Mommy." Yui replied, and with that the little dark-haired pixie vanished with a flash of blue light.
"What's up?" Kirito asked with a raised eyebrow.
Asuna merely smiled and gave Kirito a deep passionate kiss on the lips. Kirito returned the kiss, and soon their tongues were once again battling one another for dominance. After they were forced to break apart for air, Asuna moved onto Kirito's lap and began to grind her hips against him as she gave him another fiery kiss. Eventually Kirito began to kiss and suck on Asuna's neck and grope her left breast through the blue sweater she was wearing as she continued to grind into his lap. After another few minutes, Asuna called up her menu screen and in a flash of blue light was down to her powder-blue bra and panties.
Kirito called up his own screen in response and caused the long-sleeved black shirt he was wearing to vanish. They continued to make out like this for several minutes, with the bulge in Kirito's pants becoming ever more pronounced as they continued. Before long, Asuna couldn't take anymore and called up her menu again, causing her undergarments to disappear. Kirito quickly did the same thing, and in seconds he was completely nude as well. Asuna moaned as she slid down onto Kirito's hardened member and began to bounce up and down on top of him.
As the blunette rode him, Kirito would suck on Asuna's neck while massaging her breast with his right hand. Eventually they could both feel themselves coming close to the edge, and after another sweet eternity, Asuna held Kirito close as they managed to hit their climax at the same time. Asuna let out a silent scream as her orgasm rocked her body. The two of them remained in that position for several moments as they caught their breath.
"Boy! You've been pretty frisky ever since I got back." Kirito remarked.
"I'm just really happy to see you." Asuna replied before giving him a peck on the forehead. "And… I guess I needed to let off a bit of steam just now. I'm a little nervous because they're announcing the competitors who made it into the Clash of Queens tournament today. I'm not sure if I've made the cut."
"You kidding? With the way you took down Cthulhu on your own, there's no way you won't be named as one of the top thirty-two players who entered." Kirito assured her.
"Yeah, but that was just one battle." Asuna pointed out. "I know that Cthulhu is probably one of the strongest Great Old Ones in the game, but I'm sure that beating him alone won't be enough."
"We'll find out for sure when they make the announcement later this afternoon." Kirito told her. "For now, how 'bout we go try out that new sword of yours?"
"Sound like a plan." Asuna agreed. "I'm sure we've kept Siune and the others waiting too long already."
With that, the two of them got up from the couch and got dressed in their usual battle outfits. Once Yui had reappeared, the three of them left their cabin and took to the sky. After the trio had left New Aincrad, they headed to a small inn near the location of the Mound. When Kirito and Asuna arrived, Agil and Silica were waiting in the lobby. When they arrived, Yui flew over to meet with Silica's dragon. Before long, Pina was flying around the room with Yui riding on her back.
"Sorry if we kept you guys waiting." Kirito told the others.
"It's cool man. Actually, Klein and Siune have been the ones keeping us waiting." Agil revealed. "We've been waiting on 'em for half an hour now."
"Have they just not shown up?" Asuna asked.
"Actually they've been here at the inn this whole time." Silica revealed. "When Pina and I got here, I saw them going back towards one of the rooms. It didn't seem like they noticed me."
"I'll go grab them." Kirito decided.
"I'll come with." Asuna told him. "Yui, you stay here with Silica and the others."
"Kay!" Yui replied as she did another pass around the room on Pina.
A few moments later, Kirito and Asuna had come to the door of one of the rooms at the end of the hall. Finding that the door was unlocked, Kirito realized that they had found the correct room, as inn rooms were normally unlocked to other members of the same quest party.
"Maybe we should knock first?" Asuna suggested.
"Please, what could those two possibly be doing" Kirito replied as he opened the door.
In answer to Kirito's question, the couple saw a totally naked Siune bent forward and clinging to the dresser in the room with her hands while a nude Klein plowed into her from behind. Both of their bodies were covered in sweat.
"Oh god! Keep going!" Siune cried. "I'm almost there!"
"Hang on! Here it comes!" Klein called out.
In that same second Siune and Klein both climaxed. As the nude couple caught their breath, they glanced towards the door and saw Kirito and Asuna standing in the doorway. The younger couple was totally frozen, both their faces were bright red and their jaws were hanging open wide enough to let a convoy of semi trucks through. Klein and Siune's faces quickly turned a bright shade of red as well.
"What the hell! Don't you two know how to knock?" Klein shouted.
"S-Sorry!" Kirito responded.
"Uh… we'll uh… we'll give you two a few minutes." A flustered Asuna told them as she closed the door.
"What the hell was that?" Kirito exclaimed.
"You dummy! I told you we should've knocked first!" Asuna told him in a loud whisper.
"Did you know about those two seeing each other like that?" Kirito asked.
"No!" Asuna answered. "I mean I noticed that they seemed a little friendlier with one another at Agil's when we were planning the R'lyeh quest, but I didn't know they had gotten that close!"
At that moment, Agil came running up to Kirito and Asuna in the hallway. As the bald man caught his breath, he noticed how flustered the couple seemed.
"Aw shit! You saw Klein and Siune humping, didn't you?" Agil deduced.
"You knew about this?" Asuna asked.
"We'll not really." Agil answered as he rubbed the back of his head. "I mean I wondered if there wasn't something going on between Klein and Siune, but it didn't occur to me that those two might be getting it on back here until like a minute after Silica said she saw them go back to one of the rooms."
"You could've been a little quicker figuring that out!" Kirito exclaimed.
"Sorry man. I was kinda thinking about something else at the time." Agil replied.
A moment later, a fully dressed Klein and Siune emerged from the room. Siune and Klein's faces were still both bright red.
"So… that happened." Klein spoke as he rubbed the back of his head.
"We're sorry we just barged in on you two like that." Asuna told them. "Right Kirito?"
"…Let's just go to that damn mound." Kirito grumbled with a look of disgust as he walked off.
Within a few more moments, the party left the inn and took to the sky and few off toward the Mound. After a few minutes of awkward silence, Asuna flew back to have a word with Siune.
"Um… sorry about what you saw before, Asuna." Siune told her.
"Don't worry about it. It was mine and Kirito's fault for just barging in." Asuna assured her. "So… how long has this thing between you and Klein been going on?"
"Oh, for about a couple of months now." Siune answered. "We'd actually run into each other a lot IRL and would just hang out. It turned out that we had a lot of the same interests and eventually we just… clicked. Of course it didn't start to get physical between us until after the Cthulhu battle. I overreacted a little when Klein got killed off in the battle and went to his apartment to see if he was okay. You can kinda guess what happened from there."
"I'm happy for you, Siune." Asuna told her. "Klein's a bit of a perv, but he's a really good guy. You deserve someone like him."
"Thanks." Siune replied.
"But, if he does anything stupid to hurt you, just let me know." Asuna added. "I'll make sure he experiences a world of pain."
"Sure thing." Siune responded with a slight chuckle.
A few feet ahead in the aerial formation, Kirito and Klein were having a very similar conversation.
"So, you and Siune." Kirito spoke. "I have to say that I never saw that coming."
"What can I say? She's cute." Klein replied with a shrug. "Not to mention a really fun and strong person. I'm pretty lucky to have met her."
"You've got a good thing going. Just don't do anything to screw it up." Kirito told him.
"Don't worry, man." Klein replied with a thumbs-up. "I've got this."
It was a few more minutes by the time Kirito and the others reached the massive flat-topped bump in the earth that had become known as the Mound. The landmark was the first ever area based on the stories of H.P. Lovecraft ever to appear in ALO. The team landed on the top entered the small square opening in the top of the Mound that would take them into the underground cities beneath it. Once they made it down the short flight of stone steps, Kirito and the others cast a spell that would allow them to see in the dark. They then spent several minutes traversing a long stone corridor before finally reaching the first dungeon.
The dungeon in question was a sprawling dead underground city known as K'n-yan. The walls of the vast cavern that the city was contained in were made of an odd stone that bathed the entire city in a blue light, and the buildings that made up this dead metropolis were incredibly ancient and of a mixed architecture. The smaller buildings seemed to have a more Roman design, complete with pillars that decorated the entryways on the more medium-sized structures. Meanwhile in parts of the city there were massive pyramids made of an odd black stone and had a design like the pyramids built by the Aztecs or the Mayans. Besides the strange lighting and the ancient architecture, the most notable feature about the dead city of K'n-yan was that it was completely silent.
Kirito and the others ended up exploring a fairly large building on the east side of the city that was located next to one of the giant pyramids. Upon their entry into the building, the team encountered a hoard made up of twenty monsters. The creatures were a group of women with chalk white skin. In place of a head, each of the women had a spectral blue flame. Pieces of black armor covered their chests, and covering their waists were short skirts made of a tattered black cloth. Each of these headless women was armed with a black sword and a small round black shield.
As soon as the team entered the building, the hoard of headless women charged at them with their swords raised. Kirito instantly drew Excalibur and the Master's Blade and began to hack away at them. Within less than two minutes, the famed Black Swordsman managed to take out three of the undead creatures. Asuna meanwhile was able to take out five of the creatures with three quick strikes to each using the Valkyrie's Rose sword that she had received from Odin. Klein, Agil and Sinon were also able to take down some of the headless women with little difficulty. Within a few short minutes, the hoard was completely eliminated.
"I forgot just how freaky this place was." Silica remarked with a heavy sigh.
"We took those things down pretty quickly." Agil observed.
"I'll say. Of course it was Kirito and Asuna who ended up doing most of the work." Klein pointed out.
"Well, looks like this was a pretty successful test of your new sword." Kirito told Asuna.
"I'll say. This thing's just as powerful as we thought." Asuna replied as she looked at the blade before putting the weapon back in its sheath. "Hopefully it'll give me an edge in the tournament, assuming that I actually make it in of course."
"Well, well, well. This is certainly an unexpected sight." A familiar voice interrupted. Asuna and the others looked to see Nytokris standing in the doorway to the building. "I didn't think that I'd run into the friend of that poser, Yuuki skulking around K'n-yan with her little friends."
"What the hell are you doing here?" Asuna demanded to know.
"Is it a crime now to explore these ruins?" Nytokris asked. "I was just down here hunting for items when I saw you here and decided to say hi. And to remind you of how pathetic you are."
"Why don't we fight right here and now?" Asuna dared as she reached for her sword. "Then we can see which of us is really pathetic!"
"I told you, I'm not going to bother with you unless we end up facing each other in the Clash of Queens tournament." Nytokris told her. "Of course there's probably a good chance that you didn't even make the cut."
"Then how about taking me on instead?" Kirito suggested as he redrew his swords. "I've heard a lot about you, Nytokris. And I can't let the things you've said about Asuna and Yuuki stand."
Nytokris looked at Kirito's two swords and scowled. "Sorry. Not interested. I know all about you, Black Swordsman. I'm good, but at the moment I'd rather not take the chance of facing you and those two swords of yours. So for now I'll take my leave."
With that, Nytokris left the building. Asuna and Siune sighed as Kirito sheathed his two blades.
"So that was Nytokris, huh?" Klein observed. "She really is a bitch."
"She said terrible things about Yuuki when we first met her." Siune remarked. "If only I were a little stronger, I could maybe make that woman pay for what she said."
"Don't worry babe." Klein told the blunette as he put an arm around her. "People like Nytokris always get what's coming to them in the end."
Kirito glanced at his shoulder and noticed a quizzical expression on Yui's face. "Something wrong Yui?"
"I don't know." Yui answered. "There was just something about Nytokris that I couldn't quite put my finger on. I'm not sure, but I don't think that she's a normal player."
"So what should we all do now?" Agil suddenly asked. "Shall we stick around this place and explore for a little while more?"
"At least for another hour." Asuna replied. "After that, I want to get to a tavern so we can watch the announcement of the players competing in Clash of Queens. I don't want to miss finding out whether or not I made the cut."
After spending a little more time down in K'n-yan, Kirito and the others left the Mound and headed for the nearest tavern where they could watch the stream of the big Clash of Queens announcement. The group had ended up at a rather high-class café located in one of the larger cities in imp territory. It was only a few minutes after the six had sat down at large round table with a booth when the announcement began. A blue orb that had been fitted into the center of the table had started to project a blue column of light.
Appearing in the center of the light was a young-looking woman with long curly blonde hair and violet eyes. She had on a sleeveless low-cut powder-blue shirt and a short multicolored skirt with large white polka dots, along with long striped blue and black stockings and a pair of green elf shoes with little gold bells on the tips of the toes. Around the blonde's neck was a green choker with a black musical note on the front.
"Hello one and all!" the projection of the woman spoke. "For those who don't know, I am Lydia, songstress and idol of ALO and master of ceremonies for the first-ever Clash of Queens Tournament! Now we've had a lot of wonderful players enter this tournament, but I'm afraid we could only pick the top thirty-two applicants to compete. These applicants were chosen based on a number of factors like the number of monsters and other players slain, as well as successfully completed quests and monster battles. Now for the moment you've all been waiting for, here is the list of our thirty-two competitors!"
The image of Lydia vanished, and in her place was the image of a black list of names written in white text. Kirito scanned the names on the list and smiled when he saw Asuna's name towards the top at number two.
"There ya go, Asuna! I told you you'd make it." Kirito spoke.
"Yeah… but look at who got number one on the list." Asuna replied in a low voice.
Kirito looked at the list again and saw who's name was at the very top. It was Nytokris.
"Oh… well, okay. That kinda sucks." Kirito admitted. "But still, you made the cut and got number two. That's something you should be proud of."
"No! I won't accept this!" Asuna declared. "I've had enough of this woman getting the better of me! She won't push ahead of me again!"
"Wow! This is the most intense I've ever seen Mommy get." Yui quietly remarked to Kirito.
"Yeah, well… for someone who used to be ultra passionate about taking school exams, I guess this is something we should expect." Kirito replied. "Plus I'd feel pretty ticked too if someone like Nytokris got the better of me."
"Well I'll be damned." Agil spoke. "Look who else made the cut? Sinon's gonna be part of this thing too."
Kirito and Asuna both looked at the list again. Sure enough, they saw Sinon's name on the list right below Asuna's in the number three spot.
"I didn't even know Sinon had entered." Klein spoke.
"Neither did I." Agil replied. "It's not surprising that she made the cut though, considering all the other players she's taken out as a mercenary."
Kirito began to scan the list to see if there was anyone else he knew taking part in the tournament. Listed right under Sinon's name was Sakuya, the current leader of the sylphs, and below Sakuya's name was Alicia Rue, the current leader of the cait siths. Kirito saw a few other names that he didn't recognize, and then in the number nine spot he saw that Leafa was on the list.
"No way! Sugu's taking part in this thing too?" a surprised Kirito asked.
"Not just her." Asuna informed him. "Liz made the list too. She's number twenty-nine."
"Holy crap!" Silica exclaimed as she suddenly stood up. "I actually made the cut too?"
Kirito and the others looked at the list again. Sure enough, Silica's name was there at the very bottom of the list.
"Silica! I didn't even know you had entered." Asuna told her.
"Well, when I heard about the tournament, I decided to try entering just for the heck of it." Silica explained. "I didn't think I'd actually make it in as a competitor though. I mean I'm at the very bottom of the list, but still."
"I guess this means we might be facing each other later." Asuna replied.
"Yep. If that happens though, please try and go easy on me." Silica requested.
"Don't worry. I will." Asuna assured her. "A battle between us might actually be kinda fun."
Suddenly the list vanished and the image of Lydia reappeared. "To the thirty-two players who made the cut, congratulations! Your hard work paid off! As for everyone else who didn't get in, I wish you all better luck next time. The tournament will begin tomorrow at the city of the World Tree! Until next time, this is Lydia signing off!"
With that, the image of Lydia vanished and the projector inside the table stopped.
"Looks like you've got quite a battle ahead of you, Asuna." Kirito noted.
"Yep. But I'm ready for it!" Asuna declared. "I'm going to beat Nytokris and make it to the top!"
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