ALO: The Rangers
Hi, sorry this chapter is short (was at a party till like midnight and got home at like 12:30am.
In this chapter, mostly-canon stuff happens, biggest spoilers.
On the topic of spoilers, there is a bad guy in star wars, such a plot twist, I know.
ALO Extra Edition time.
Chapter 10: Pool
(1st person, Asuna, July 25th, 12:40pm)
We were at school, as usual, but that was no surprise at this time of day, what was different from the usual was what was happening after school.
We had gotten permission from the school—well we had convinced Kazuto and Shino to get permission from the school because it was willing to do basically whatever they asked for—to use the school pool after school and were planning to have a pool party there for, well no particular reason other then it being the middle summer.
None of us, or at least most of us, had swimsuits our size right now because we hadn't gone swimming in a year and a half, so after school Rika, Keiko, Sugu, and I were going shopping for swimsuits. Shino already had one from whenever so she hadn't agreed to come.
I looked over to their table and saw Kazuto napping, as usual, and Shino just barely not napping, clearly bored.
If I didn't know them, which means probably everyone here other then me, I would probably expect them to be the worst students in the class and not the best, it would probably also annoy them that the teacher obviously notices that there aren't paying a scrap of attention and yet does nothing about it.
From my perspective they should be allowed to do literally whatever they want as long as it doesn't harm anyone.
Maybe I should take a page from their book and take a nap, I already know most of the stuff in this class anyway, though I probably won't be able to finish the homework within class then.
(2:30pm)
And the bell rung, double checking all the homework is done I pack my things and walk out with Kazuto and Shino.
Mother had given me permission to spend time with my 'unrefined' friends as long as I got at least an A- on everything so I was able to spend time with including for example this shopping trip.
After my little rant after my first day in school my mom made me apologize the next day but also 'apologized without apologizing' herself and didn't completely forbid me to interact with them unlike most of the other people I tried to interact with and by extension that applied also to the rest of the group.
We walked to our favorite meeting point and waited a few minutes for everyone to show up, once Rika, Keiko and Sugu showed up we head off to the store, on foot in this case because it was close and with the amount we play VRMMOs we needed some form of exercise.
Kazuto had apparently picked up kendo again, though I pitied the other people in the school club—even if they were all SAO survivors—for having to fight against the previous national champion in kendo and the person who cleared SAO.
Why and how Kazuto and Shino had kept their SAO avatars and real selves unlinked as far as the people in the school were concerned I didn't know, I mean Shino just dyed her hair in SAO and Kirito literally just wore different clothing.
We were walking along the sidewalk with Rika and Keiko chatting about whatever they chat about and Sugu being mostly quiet along with me.
They seemed to be talking about swimsuits, which made some sense given that we were going to buy some right now.
We made it to the clothing store we were heading to rather uneventfully—thankfully—and walked in.
We went to the 'girls swimwear' section to pick out swimsuits.
Half an hour and a testing room trip later we were done picking out swimsuits.
Sugu had picked a rather simple one-piece blue swimsuit.
Keiko had picked a yellow bikini with red-ish pink outlines.
Rika had picked a red one-piece with a tiny skirt attached to it and some black ribbons.
And finally I had picked a red-and-white striped bikini.
We bought the things, each paying for our own swimsuit despite me offering to but all of them because, frankly, mother gave me way to much money and seemed to want me to spend more and look more 'high class', but they had declined.
(4:30pm)
I think pool parties are supposed to be a lot earlier then this, but whatever, the sun was still out and it was still hot so it was still a good time for a pool party.
I reached the school, because I walked there it took a little while but I had had plenty of time and I enjoyed walking through Tokyo, at least, after SAO I did.
And also I needed exercise.
Walking through the empty school campus to where I remembered the pool to be, though I hadn't been there before, I had seen a map so I vaguely knew where to go.
After a bit of wandering I found the pool and walked through the gate in the fence.
Seeing as there was no one else here they were either all here first and already changing or not here yet.
I decided to go check the changing room for them and didn't find them but when I was about to leave they all walked in.
"Hey, I thought I was last, not first." I said.
"Why haven't you changed yet?" asked Keiko.
"I was looking for you guys." I said.
"Oh..." she answered.
We walked into separate stalls and changed before walking back out.
Entering the pool area we looked around wondering if Kazuto and/or Shino had arrived yet.
We saw them walking over but then the speakers said Kirigaya Kazuto and Asada Shino report to the counseling office.
That would be pretty embarrassing if there was anyone else on campus, thankfully for them, there was not.
"Why would they need to go to counseling office?" asked Rika.
"I can think of a lot of reasons..." I said quietly, remembering all the crazy things they had done, which was quite the list, and I probably didn't know about most of it.
"Like what?" asked Rika.
"Well they are obviously insane, I mean how else can someone do stupidly risky things and then just wave off the fact they nearly died?" I answered with a question.
"Good point..." Rika said.
"But all the insane stuff they did was inside SAO/ALO so this shouldn't be about that and all they do on campus is sleep/nearly sleep so I it is probably something else, whatever, let's get to swimming." I said.
Rika and Keiko nodded and we ran to the pool, jumping in.
Well, all of us but Sugu.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"Well, I sorta, uh... can't swim..." Sugu said awkwardly.
""WHAT?"" asked Keiko and Rika.
"Not everyone bothers to learn, for various reasons." I said in a scolding tone.
"Well we'll teach you then, come on, get an inner tube and jump in." I said to her.
She nodded reluctantly and grabbed one of the not-so-few inner tubes and put it down in the water with a slightly embarrassed look on her face, then got into it.
Rika started teasing Sugu until I told her to stop.
I started to teach Sugu to swim, starting with teaching her to hold her breath and trying to remember how the tutors mother hired to teach me when I was little taught me.
(Shino, 4:47pm)
Well, after arriving at the counseling office we found that it was not counseling we were needed here for at all but because the government agent—what was his name, Kikuoka—wanted to talk to us, again, this time, something totally new, he wanted to ask questions about what happened in SAO, why now? I dunno.
"Hello." he said from behind the desk as we walked in.
"Hello." Kazuto said and I just stayed silent.
"Please, take a seat." he said.
"We were planning to anyway." I said quietly, though loud enough he could certainly hear.
He chose to ignore my remark and continued "I would like to ask you some questions about what happened in SAO."
"Again." Kazuto muttered.
It turned out that he basically wanted us to summarize everything that happened in SAO.
We did, though emitting any details he probably shouldn't know about, for example, we barely mentioned Yui.
We told him about how we started off in a larger group but then split off when we became beaters, about the harder bosses with much larger casualties every 25 floors, even about how Kazuto died though not about our conversation with Kayaba or the fact Kayaba was still alive, in a sense.
Speaking of Kayaba, once the program called the 'seed' that Kayaba had given blossomed we found that it was a tool for creating, running, and connecting to VRMMOs running a stripped down version of Cardinal, after we decided that it was safe we released it to the world for free and it had revived the VRMMO industry, causing hundreds if not thousands of VRMMOs to spring up around the world.
"Why were you so much stronger then everyone else?" the agent asked once we finished.
"Why? Because we spent more time fighting then anybody else by a factor of 2 or 3, and in the beta we did as well so we knew how the game worked, I already knew how to fight with a sword, well and you already know the last factor if you have done your research." Kazuto answered.
"On that topic, I would like to ask one last question, what is your involvement with the creation of SAO, I know that Kayaba payed you for something during a fairly long period of time before the SAO beta test, but I do not know what for." the agent said.
"I made most of the combat system, along with a system most people would be unable to use and even Kayaba did not know about until he asked me how I beat him." Kazuto said.
"I take it you did not know that Kayaba planned to trap everyone in the game? And also out of non-proffensional curiosity, what system did you make that Kayaba did not know about?" he asked.
"Obviously not, I did not even have any role in any of the work done between the end of the beta and the release. As for the second question it would take a long time to explain, but basically, if you wish hard enough for something within certain parameters it will come true, why it was possible to create I don't know but small effects of it happened without the part I made and I just made it a full system and not random tiny effects." Kazuto said. (Setting up for the Alicization arc, if I get around to writing it)
Wait what? The incarnation system or whatever he called it existed before he made to a certain extent?
"Okay, that is all. You can ask me whatever it is you want to know now or whenever, if you don't want to ask anything, I have asked everything I planned to." the agent said.
Well, on the plus side, this government agent owes us some more.
We got up and said goodbye as we left, checking the time I realized it had taken quite a while to summarize all of a years events in detail, no surprise there and that they were probably done/nearly-done swimming already.
It wasn't that big a deal though, as I wasn't all that excited for swimming and I don't think Kazuto was either.
(Asuna, 5:23pm)
Sugu was learning to swim quite fast and by the end of today she would probably learn to swim, it turned out she not only didn't know how to swim but had a fear of water, though I hadn't asked why yet.
At this point she could swim decently well but if she got close to running out of air she would panic.
"Why don't we take a break and have some food before going back to swimming? I brought some sandwiches." I asked.
"""Yeah!""" they all said and we climbed out of the water.
We ate sandwiches, which I made as close as I could to the ones I made in SAO for Kirito and Sinon and I asked "Hey Sugu, why are you scared of water?"
"Well, I nearly drowned in a pond when I was little, onii-san saved me but I was scared of water after that so I never learned to swim." Sugu said.
Soooooorrryy, I know chapters have been short and far between lately but it is closer to 4am then to 3am by now and I really need to sleep.
Also the next chapter of ALO: The Rangers will likely be the last unless I can't fit the rest of the special edition into one chapter.
Anyway, cya me oouuttiiyy!