In which the power of love...may or may not be enough.
I can't believe these two have been living in my head rent-free for OVER THREE YEARS. That's absolutely insane and the passage of time means nothing.
I wish I could remember every second we had, I know I tried to count 'em all one by one, one by one, but you don't get 'em back - Lose You Now (Lindsey Stirling, ft. Mako)
o0o0o
Having fought by Asuna's side for countless battles, from small skirmishes with no one but the other to watch their backs, to all-out boss fights at max capacity, Karma knows just how devastating Asuna's blade is. Proof lies in the pain pulsing from her injuries in time with her roaring pulse.
Gritting her teeth through the stinging agony of each wound, Karma drives Asuna away from Kirito, weaving a web of steel with her own blade. To an unpracticed eye, it looks like none of her strikes are landing at all; in reality, it's a combination of Asuna's instinctive reflexes dodging each one and Karma's own skill placing the blows exactly where she wants them to go. She's not looking to hurt Asuna, only to constrain her.
The art of fighting to kill was hard to master. The science of fighting to detain was arguably even harder, but master both she did.
Sugou's intervention hinders Asuna, in the end. Asuna's subconscious might be doing the fighting, but only through her memories of her combat experience in SAO. She doesn't remember being this fast, and with her limited control over her own movements, she hasn't the ability to adjust accordingly. And Karma likes to think that there's part of Asuna that's still fighting to not have to fight the people she loves.
With pinpoint accuracy, she slams the crossguard of her sword against Asuna's, locking the two blades together and twisting Asuna's out of her grasp. As the brunette stumbles, Karma delivers a kick to the backs of her knees, sending her tumbling to the floor in a whirl of auburn and white. She pounces, trying to hold Asuna down.
"Kirito, help—gah!"
The top of Asuna's head slams into her chin, and her grip falters. Quickly, she rolls away before Asuna can land another hit with her sword, catching her breath in a low crouch.
She glares up at Sugou. "Are you entertained yet?" she asks sarcastically. "I'll hold her off all day if I have to. You forget that I trained alongside her for two years. I know every nuance of her fighting style, even the ones she doesn't."
He looks outraged, like a child whose favorite toy has broken down out of the blue. "That's impossible!" he hisses, his face turning peculiar shades of maroon. "I gave her one of the best weapons in the game! I elevated her numbers so high that you should've been overwhelmed in seconds without trying to kill her!"
"And I'm a killer," she says coldly, standing. "And I got this way because I spent every minute of it trying not to be. And there's still no one alive who's better at fighting players than I am." Lifting her chin, she declares, "If there's a way to win without bloodshed, you can bet I've found it."
It's the one part of her profession, her talent, that she could take any pride in—that she did her best trying to avoid doing it at all.
Sugou's expression contorts. Asuna stands like a statue, seeming to await further orders. They just need an opening, a moment when he lets his guard down, an instant upon which Karma can capitalize. It's all or nothing, but that kind of pressure is nothing short of familiar when she's held the weight of lives in her hands.
Then Sugou's face morphs into one of glee. "No one, you say? Well, care to, in your words, enlighten me?"
First, though, they'll have to get past whatever ring of fire he'll have them jump next.
She can almost hear Heathcliff's voice, offering help, and she knows it is not offered out of any desire to indebt her to him. Tempting as the offer might be, though, especially now in the face of an unknown weapon trained against her, she can't let him have her back for every fight she'll face. She would be constantly fearing that he might put a knife in it again, or that one day, however unlikely, he might even be standing on the other side of the field again. Being gripped by fear that poisons her every move is no way to fight.
I'm done with the paranoia.
Whatever may come, it ends here.
She grunts as a disc of light opens up beneath their feet, and gravity seizes her limbs and pulls. Snarling, she struggles to fight it off, but it feels like the paralysis in Aincrad did, like it takes everything she has to simply hold her ground, let alone push back.
A gasp escapes Asuna's lips, and Karma's focus slips, sending her sprawling on her stomach, her cheek pressed to the cold ground. Her heart lurches as Asuna slumps to the side, her eyes wide and disoriented, but her actions are very much her own again.
Then her gaze falls on Kirito and Karma, who bites back a sob as her eyes widen, her hand reaching for them.
"Karma! Kirito-kun-"
Fluttering to the ground, Sugou snaps his fingers, and golden chains materialize themselves around her wrists. Asuna lets out a yelp of alarm and outrage as they yank her backwards and up, holding her feet suspended centimeters above the ground no matter how much she struggles. Her copper eyes blaze with defiance, but fear lurks in the shadows, and Karma's gut twists as Sugou leers openly at his captive.
She does grin when Asuna bites his hand when he tries to touch her face. Just for extra insult, the brunette spits at him, giving him a blistering glare.
Her eyes widen slightly as she eyes the red marks on Sugou's hand.
Don't tell me…
"Since you were kind enough to volunteer your outstanding skills," he says, grinning wickedly, "I think I have a better idea." He runs a hand down Asuna's arm, ignoring her outraged squirming and cursing and Kirito's equally outraged yelling in the background. "I wouldn't want my darling princess to feel bored, so why don't you two put on a show for us?"
In the split second when the gravitational pull drops, Karma has a moment of dawning comprehension, and that split second was all she had to brace herself.
A choked cry escapes her as she clutches her head with one hand. It doesn't hurt and that's the most disturbing part; it feels like worms in her head, in her brain, and she dry-heaves, coughing and retching at the disgusting feeling.
"You bastard," she grinds out. "You'll never take me."
Forcing past her instincts, she slams the palm of her right hand down on the blade of her sword. The pain grants her a moment of clarity. Her body suddenly feels light as a feather when the gravity field drops, and she lunges, a hoarse roar ripping itself from her throat.
CLANG!
Once bright pewter, now a dull stone gray, meets Karma's incredulous gaze before she springs back, Kirito's sword flashing through the air where she stood.
"Snap out of it!" she shouts, flinching as the pain starts to wear off. "Come on, where's that golden heart of yours?"
Chains clash as Asuna thrashes, shouting at the top of her lungs, "Kirito-kun, fight!"
He falters, his hand twitching, and Karma staggers, sinking to one knee as the invasive presence intensifies. Boiling rage bubbles in her chest; her own mind is the last sanctuary she has, and this monster won't be the one to breach it.
His sick laughter bounces inside of her skull painfully. "Well, I must commend the two of you. You certainly put up a better fight than I've seen so far!"
In a haze of wrath, Karma whirls around, teeth bared, but pays for her lapse in concentration as Kirito's blade punches into her shoulder. White hot pain sears through her entire upper body, overtaking all five senses as she opens her mouth but can't hear the scream.
She hits the ground on one knee with a wheeze, and her instincts throw her into a roll, which likely saves her as Kirito's blade misses her by centimeters. With a strangled shout of pain, she twists her body up and leaves a gash on his shin, hoping to slow him down. He staggers, lurching sideways, and she throws herself back to put some distance between them, squeezing her eyes shut.
"It'll be easier if you stop struggling, you know," Sugou drawls, chuckling. "It's futile either way."
Karma bares her teeth in response instinctively, but she can feel it, the weight of her heart, heavy with so many guilts that she has, many times, wished that she could discard.
I don't want to carry this anymore, she has screamed silently in the depths of her despair, quivering like Atlas under the weight of the world.
This isn't how she wanted to live, bound and shackled to the skeletons in her closet for the rest of her time in this life. She is twenty years old, barely a quarter of the way through her lifespan, and will have to live the rest of her life dragging with her a burden that she willingly accepted upon her shoulders but was never ready for.
How many more nights will she wake in a cold sweat, the faces of her dead ghosts fresh in her memory? How many more harmless shadows will she jump at, her hand searching for a weapon no longer present, all because of the few times that those shadows dug their claws into her chest and tore out something that they never gave back? How many more times will she make two cups of coffee and ache for the lack of company with which to share it?
I don't want to live like this.
Her head bows, until her chin dips against her collarbone. Cold metal brushes against her skin.
Clarity surges through her like ice water. Her lungs shudder with a gasp of their own volition.
His face is fading out of her memories, she realizes with a bout of bone-chilling, raw terror.
No no no no no no no-
This can't end like this. She won't let it end like this, with someone else stealing the memories she treasures so dearly. These are hers, this is her story, their story, and as painful as it might be, it's hers to let go of.
For so long, she waited for him to relinquish the hold he has over her life, but her life is her own and no one else's. Her own fear of living a life without him is the only thing stopping her from taking it back for herself, and in her cowardice, she decided to blame him for both their flaws.
They can't exist together in the virtual world anymore. They never were able to in the real world either, and never will be. There is no future for them, and attempting to deceive them both otherwise is what ruined them, in the end. The only place they were happy together is in the memories they both share. No longer will Karma tear herself apart wishing for a lie again, but all the same, those memories, that life they led hand in hand, will never be anyone's but theirs.
And these feelings are mine, and mine alone.
She will never forget. To do so would be a disservice to their time together, and all the pain that came of it. Maybe one day, she will forgive, and if she does, it will be for no one's sake but her own.
Karma can think clearly now, she realizes, her hand clasped so tightly around the fake necklace at her throat that red flakes drift from her fist in her periphery. With equal strength, she clings to the memory of him, of the sound of his voice, both the low, smooth rumbles and the tense, biting hurt. The tilt of his smile, warm and bitter. The image of his back, both a source of titanic strength on the front lines, his armor plated frame cast in stark shadow by flying sparks, and the visage of a broken soul as he walked away, thin shoulders bearing a white lab coat and the weight of his crumbling castle.
She clings to the memory, and lets the hatred go.
Sugou cackles as their blades clash, with Karma on the offensive. Kirito had reclaimed his sword and evidently snapped himself out of it with Asuna's help. His protests and Asuna's pleas seem to fall on deaf ears as the Fairy King goads them on, mock cheering.
Spinning to put her back to Sugou, she winks at Kirito, whose sword drops a fraction of a centimeter before she leaps at him. In his surprise, he's slow to react, and she disarms him quickly, rolling away into a crouch with his blade in hand.
The murderous glare she shoots isn't aimed at the Black Swordsman, though.
"You lose," she sneers.
Kirito's sword flies through the air in a pinwheel of steel. It slices clean through Asuna's chains, cleaving them with the sound of shattering glass. Asuna's feet touch the ground for an instant before she lunges in a blur of white like a lightning bolt. Pivoting on her heel, she whips her wrist around in a snapping arc, and the golden chain links lash across Sugou's shocked face, sending him staggering away.
Karma lunges. With a war cry like a thunderclap, steel flashes once, twice, and the Fairy King's hands shatter into dust and light. He folds like tissue paper when Karma plants her boot in his stomach, shoving him to the ground.
"Such arrogance," she declares coldly, stalking towards him. Pain flares out from her wounds with every step she takes. Heat radiates into her lungs from her shoulder like the breath of a dragon, and she steeps in the feverish warmth, letting it feed her fury. A dark satisfaction wells up in her at the way he scrambles away on his behind; oh so suddenly, the tables have turned.
"You thought yourself a god. Above the rules of your own game," she spits out in contempt. "Too bad you were so stupid you forgot to actually make it so."
Looking him dead in the eye, she adds as an aside, "I know you're listening. Set his pain absorber to zero for me."
His mouth opens wide, either to deliver a pointless remark or a voice command, but he's slow. The heel of her boot comes down hard on his windpipe with all the force she can muster, and a strangled wheeze is all that makes it past his lips. In a blur of steel, her sword flickers like a lunging viper, and the only thing that comes out is a garbled scream as she cuts his face. The red pixels slash through his mouth from ear to ear like a grisly imitation of a snake's jaws.
The sounds he's making don't resemble any kind of language, but the begging and pleading in his tone is quite clear, and she scoffs at his blatant cowardice. Her blade casually blinks once as he throws up his arms in vain, and a high pitched shriek follows the thin line of red scoring across his arm.
Perhaps cruelty is not within her nature, but it is well within her capabilities.
The tip of her boot smashes into his jaw as he tries to scramble away, and as he's squirming on the ground whimpering, Asuna marches up to him in a halo of silk and satin finery. At a wordless glance, Karma tosses her sword to her, and Asuna raises it above her head.
"Any last words?" she inquires, her voice deceptively soft, copper eyes unforgiving.
Sugou's bulging eyes stream tears of pain as he howls and rages incoherently, legs flailing. Though Karma has already robbed him of speech, the meaning is clear enough.
Asuna narrows her eyes.
"Right," she states flatly. "Here's to the rest of your life spent rotting away in prison."
Asuna stabs him neatly between the eyes, and the chamber finally falls into a ringing silence. Long after his body is gone, long after the dust and shards have faded entirely, she stands there, still gripping the blade with white knuckles, jaw clenched, copper orbs fixed on the spot where she banished her tormentor.
Her shoulders are trembling as Karma places a gloved hand upon them; slowly, her tremors begin to ease, and she lifts her chin even as her slender frame seems to fold into itself with exhaustion. Her eyes search Karma's in that way she would after every battle, as if looking for confirmation, and it's all Karma can do to nod, a lump rising in her throat.
It's over.
With a ghost of a smile, Karma turns, gently nudging Asuna, who follows her gaze as Kirito takes a half step forward, pewter eyes bright with tears even as Asuna crashes into him, Karma's sword clattering to the ground, forgotten. They may have had their differences along the way—putting it mildly—but Karma can't bring herself to feel anything but relief now.
This is the way it should be, she thinks to herself as she lets her shoulders fall wistfully, wishing Heathcliff was here to prop her up. She doesn't need him nor the strength that his illusion afforded her, not anymore, but she thinks she's still allowed to mourn its loss nonetheless.
With a rueful half smile, she looks up as Asuna stops in front of her, eyes bright with tears.
"I'm sorry it took so long," Karma whispers, elation mixing with guilt for having wasted so much time on a dream, on a past long gone instead of a future worth trying for if only she had opened her eyes.
Asuna just shakes her head and throws her arms around Karma, a gesture she doesn't hesitate to reciprocate even as tears cascade down her face, into auburn hair, until she is clinging to Asuna like a lifeline. The throbbing pain dulls down to a blunter ache with every heartbeat of theirs.
And Asuna cries too, face buried against Karma's shoulder, red pixels from the wound still glowing like flakes of blood as she sobs, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry I hurt you—I didn't want-"
"I know," she whispers, rubbing Asuna's back. "It's okay, really. It wasn't your fault, and he's gone now, and he'll never hurt us again."
In the dark, she holds Asuna until the latter's sobs have died down to quiet snuffles. How could she ever give this up?
"I always knew you could do it," Asuna finally whispers, so full of warmth and love, and Karma squeezes her eyes shut with a shaky exhale.
Heathcliff was never the only one who had faith in her.
With a tearful smile, she pulls back to cradle Karma's face in her hands; her touch is different, but warm, and Karma realizes that she hasn't felt that warmth in what feels like a long, long time.
"I promise I'll never leave you again," she vows. "Just-" Her expression crumbles slightly. "Please, don't throw your life away again like you did fighting the commander in Aincrad. You mean too much to me."
And in that moment, she realizes that she could never live with herself if she just kept running.
Heathcliff may have been her everything, but he was not everything that mattered. She can't let her world keep revolving around him because of what they once were, what they can never be again. She shouldn't have to live with that pain, and regardless of whether or not it will ever go away, she shouldn't force him to live with it either.
Maybe they don't deserve better, not after what they've both done. But the right to try to be better, and choose better, can never be taken away from them—not by the world, and not by each other either.
And more importantly, she will not hurt Asuna the same way Heathcliff hurt Karma by abandoning her, the way he was once hurt, the way she herself has already hurt so many other people. The cycle has to end; it will end here.
"I promise," she breathes.
And Asuna just nods with a watery smile, sealing the peace to the war just now starting to settle in Karma's head. She lets her head drop to Asuna's shoulder and takes a deep, shuddering breath. Perhaps later, when she's started putting back together her trust in other people, she can tell her everything, a little bit at a time.
For now, Asuna doesn't need to know everything. And they have more pressing things to attend to at the moment.
Taking a step back and a deep breath, she turns to face the blank space around them. "Alright, send them home."
Asuna makes a confused noise, while Kirito's shoulders stiffen in shock and comprehension. He opens his mouth, but Karma holds a hand up for silence.
"I know I can't take it back," she says firmly, closing her eyes briefly. "That's the point. And maybe I'm the last person you want to see right now, but I'm not done here. Send them home, and keep her safe, at least for a little longer." To Asuna, she whispers, "I'll be there as soon as I can, I promise. I'll walk a thousand kilometers to you if I have to."
A thousand questions swim in the copper eyes she missed so much. But Asuna settles for a warm nod as she and Kirito's avatars become engulfed in blinding white light.
For a moment, she considers going with them. Just leaving him here, never to see him again. Maybe that would be for the best. Sever all the threads for a clean start.
His mother already abandoned him without an explanation or a goodbye. I can at least do this much.
Even if she was the one pushing him away.
When Karma blinks, they're gone. The sun is setting, and she's back in the birdcage. The door is open (but only to one of them).
He's there, standing at the table. Not Heathcliff, though.
Kayaba.
She breathes in deep, and picks up her sword from the ground before sliding it back into its sheath; she won't need it for this. She's not walking towards another fight; they've all fought enough already.
"Hello," she whispers—the start of a goodbye.
o0o0o
I've done my best, it wasn't much; I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch; I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you - Hallelujah (Leonard Cohen)
in this farewell, there's no blood, there's no alibi, 'cause I've drawn regret from the truth of a thousand lies - What I've Done (Skillet)
So...that happened. Won't lie, it was fun making Sugou suffer. See, I don't just do it to my favorite babies! My hobby does not discriminate, most times :)
I thought it would be fun to make Asuna cry (ok I'm evil, I admit it, anyways) because how often do we see her break down like that in canon? The ones that stand out to me most are when she breaks down in front of Kirito before the last boss fight, and when they think they've lost Yui (maybe she cries in Alicization? Not sure). She holds it together so often, and I figure that if I'm going to give Karma a little sister in Asuna, I should give Asuna a big sister in Karma.
Anyways, for some time now, Karma has been making everyone around her choose between 'bad' and 'worse', like she did. She forced herself to choose between staying in the real world and potentially making things worse for herself, or running away into Alfheim. She forced Kirito to choose between dying on Leafa's side, or giving up the fight and essentially choosing Asuna over his sister. She forced Leafa to choose between helping the Sylphs and Cait Sith recover, or fighting alongside Salamanders for her brother's sake. She forced Heathcliff to choose between walking into fire, or leaving her. And now she realizes she can't bear to do that to Asuna.
We're making progress here, see? :D
So yeah, Karma has made her decision. She knows this, he knows this too. But it's hard to let go without some sort of closure, and the last they saw each other was when she lashed out at him and told him to leave and he did.
And now we're here. Stick around, there's not much left :)
