Woah what's this? Two chapters in the same year? And within two months of each other? WILD. Bet you didn't see this coming.

(Things are about to get busy for me so I knew if I didn't upload this now, I probably wouldn't get to it for a very, very long time :3)

Anyways. *deep breath*


should've stayed, were there signs I ignored? can I help you not to hurt anymore? - One More Light (Linkin Park)

o0o0o

Her boots clunk, muted and quiet, with each step towards the table where he stands, watching her approach with a silent mask. The marble legs of the chair scrape against the floor as she pulls out the only chair.

Too tired for any semblance of grace, she drops into the seat heavily and puts her elbows up on the table. The door stands off to the side, the fading sunlight streaming in, casting them both in half shadow, half light. In her periphery, she can see that her own clothes are different, but not unfamiliar, as is the weight and balance of her armor; the color of her hair has likewise reverted from Salamander red to her own pitch black.

Kayaba meets her gaze evenly, but with a deliberately blank look in his eyes. Never once in the last month, in the last two years, has Heathcliff ever looked at her like that, like he's purposefully hiding from her, the same way that she used to mask her own emotions to protect herself from the people who would exploit it as weakness.

"Wow," she sighs, "I really did screw up."

He just shrugs one thin shoulder, gaze downcast. "I don't blame you."

Raising her eyebrows at him, she replies mildly, "You should."

"I was the one who hurt you first."

"Yeah." She rubs at her face with both hands. "Doesn't mean I should've hurt you back."

Looking at him now, both of them weary and tired of fighting, it's hard to remember the anger. It's hard to remember wanting to hurt the one person that, in two years, she never even thought about raising a hand to, literally or figuratively; anyone who wanted to hurt him would've had to do so over her dead body.

How could I? part of her wonders, while the other part reminds her, But you did.

"Yes, well." He smiles humorlessly, voice taking on a wistful lilt. "You were right, you know. We had everything. And I'm the one who ruined it all."

A chair materializes across from her in a glow of blue interspersed with golden binary. It's the same chair that he used to have sitting behind his stupidly expensive mahogany desk that she made fun of him for splurging on, back in his office in Granzam. Seeing Kayaba sit down in it, wearing his white lab coat instead of Heathcliff's crimson robes, is definitely strange.

But then again, everything about this is out of place. Kayaba instead of Heathcliff in the virtual world, Karma as herself instead of Catherine in Alfheim.

He also looks like a twig sitting in the chair that has always been the seat of the Paladin. She tries to smother a laugh, and he tilts his head at her.

"What's so funny?" he asks; clearly, she didn't do as good of a job at hiding it as she thought.

Squashing the remains of a smile and hiding the evidence behind her hand, she shakes her head. Her shoulders loosen as she slumps forward a little on the table, unwittingly starting to relax at the split second glimpse of the easy, meaningless chatter that had occurred so many times just like this.

Part of her wants to think that if they just tried one more time, just one more time, they could really have this back. They were so close last time, weren't they?

"We had everything," he repeats softly, staring at her, "and I threw it all away. So why did you come back to me?"

Karma sighs. "Going right for the big questions that I don't want to think about, huh?"

"You're the one who wanted to stay and talk."

She makes a face. "Fair."

All this time, she's tried to avoid it as best as she could, to avoid thinking of those few weeks that stretched on like decades, just as the entirety of today has felt like a year. But he knows about the loneliness, the grief, the resentment, so she doesn't need to explain all of that to him again. She didn't have to the first time either; he took one look at her and understood. That, he understood.

"I think I just couldn't accept it," she admits. "That the last two years of my life were a lie, and I'd suffered through all of it for nothing. Because you made the pain worth being alive to bear, you gave me a reason to do all those terrible things and keep going even though I knew I was going to pay for it. No price was too high if it was for your sake." She squeezes her eyes shut, faces flashing beneath her eyelids, friends that she couldn't save and foes that she couldn't afford to show mercy to. "But then you left. You never needed me in the first place. And it felt like everything I'd done just suddenly became meaningless, even though I-" Her voice catches painfully in her throat. "I tried so hard."

"It meant the world," he tells her, his voice hard with a plea for her to believe. "And I did need you, more than I can possibly say. You've done so much for me, and I was—I am so proud of you. I always have been."

"That's the thing," she says; it's ever so slightly infuriating, how her heart does the same buoyant jump at his words, just like it always has, but now her mind doesn't know what to make of it. "You said that, but the whole time, you were the one holding the knife in my back. How was I supposed to believe you after that?"

"Just because I hid my intentions doesn't mean that every single action was insincere," he insists. "Quite the opposite—at least to you. Yes, I used a different name and face, but there might as well have been three versions of me, because the Heathcliff that you knew was not the one that everyone else saw. For them, I put on an act more often than not. For you, it was a completely different story. I am not trying to deny or justify my deceit. What I want you to know is that the only secrets I ever kept from you were related to my identity. Whether or not you believe me now, I have told you things about me that no one else knows, in this world or any other, with perhaps a single exception." With a wry smile, he adds, "I didn't intend to. But you always treated me with nothing but absolute sincerity, and before I knew it, I was hard pressed to do otherwise in return."

Karma searches his expression on a face she's not familiar with. Logically, she always knew that he treated her a little differently than he treated everyone else. How could she not, when the people around her—namely, the other Knights—kept telling her so? Evidence for it was always there, over and over, right up until the end. Why else would he have stayed to accept her challenge, risking and ultimately losing everything he created? If that challenge came from anyone else, even Asuna, he wouldn't have done the same.

To Heathcliff, Karma was always special. She knew this, just as she knew that she wasn't special enough to make him stay.

But she wanted him to stay because it was real, right?

Heaving another sigh, she admits, "Yeah, now I think I can sort of see it again." After everything they've put each other through, the haze of grief and resentment has started to fade from her vision; it's staggering to think about how long she's gone through the world while only seeing everything through such clouded eyes. "But you have to understand that I couldn't before. Everything got turned upside down, I couldn't tell what was real and what wasn't, and I wanted—I needed to know how much of your affection was genuine, because I just didn't know."

For so long, she'd spent countless hours in sleepless nights combing through the memories that she'd just fought so hard to keep. Desperately searching each one of them, she examined his every expression, action, and word, trying so, so hard to discern act from truth, and driving herself deeper and deeper into her grief because she couldn't tell.

"I've tried to tell you," he says softly.

She nods. "I know. And I didn't listen. I couldn't trust you again. Even now…I get what you're saying, but I'm scared to believe you."

"Why?" he asks; it's obvious that he's asking a genuine question. "I have nothing to gain anymore from lying to you, and it's not as if I can betray you again."

"Oh, I'm sure I could think of something if I tried," she says dryly. "But I'm sick of losing things. Part of me wanted to believe it was real, and part of me wanted to believe it wasn't. Because if it wasn't, and it was all a lie from the start-" She swallows hard. "Then I wouldn't have lost anything anyways. Can't lose what you never had, right?" But that doesn't apply here, not when there was a time when she did believe that it was real, no matter how it turned out. "And maybe it would hurt less than knowing just how much I really had and then lost."

With a sheepish chuckle, she says, "So all along, I've been trying to deny myself the thing that I wanted most. I've gotten pretty good at making things hard for myself, wouldn't you agree?"

Wisely, he keeps quiet. Her hand drifts to her chest, where the necklace lies, cold and still.

"But now, I think I just need to decide for myself what was real, and find a way to be content with that. After all…" With a flicker of old confidence, she adds, "There's no one in this world or any other who knows Heathcliff better than I do. You told me that once, you know."

"Did I?"

"Yep. You told me not to doubt myself when it came to you." Something like a smile sits twisted on her lips. "And you were right. It wasn't me I should've doubted."

"No, it wasn't," he agrees.

It's a little jarring to speak so honestly to someone who doesn't look like him. As she thought on Christmas night, sitting together just out of reach of all the fairy lights, only one of the two, between Kayaba and Heathcliff, lets her keep pretending.

"You'll be okay in the real world, you know," he says, full of quiet certainty.

Karma raises her eyebrows at him for changing the subject but relents.

"Maybe," she mumbles. "I won't make the same mistake again of not relying on the Knights, but…I don't even know how to get to them." She told Asuna she'd walk a thousand kilometers to her if she had to, but even she's cognizant enough to know that was definitely an 'it's the thought that counts' type of statement.

"With or without them, you'll be fine," he declares; she wishes she had his confidence. "We both know it—you just have to believe it. You…" At her tentatively expectant expression, he shrugs, quirking a tiny smile. "You're capable of much more than you realize."

With a groan, she slouches lower, not bothering to hide the bitterness in her voice. "In the light of the things I've been doing recently that I didn't think I was capable of until I did it, that does not make me feel better."

"Well, that's your choice," he says in an unconcerned tone. "It doesn't have to be a bad thing."

"I suppose…" She sighs. "Though I'll never be brilliant like you."

Kayaba glares at her—actually glares at her—and it takes her aback.

"Not like me, no," he agrees, something in his voice drawn taut like a bowstring. "But you are brilliant, and I don't like it when you put yourself down like that." She can only stare as his gaze flickers away, and that something disappears from his voice as he adds evenly, "Take that as you will. No matter what happens, I want you to keep living."

The question is on the tip of her tongue, straining to burst free.

You really think I'm brilliant?

She likes it, loves it, when he believes in her. No one ever did before; how could they, when she had nothing in particular to strive for? No hobbies she felt strongly enough about to turn into a living, no outstanding talents or skills, no particular wishes or visions for the future to create. Average. Good enough, and never anything more.

And then he came and he went like a flash in the sky; he gave her a dream and he lifted her high, and she flew. He gave her something worth wanting and the drive to reach for it.

When she thinks she knows what she's giving up, somehow, she finds more to lose.

"So what about you?" she asks, forcing her voice to hold steady. "Why'd you appear to me like you did?"

"You wanted me to," he answers.

She frowns. It's true that back in Aincrad, if he told her to jump, she would've. It wasn't supposed to work the other way around, though.

"You knew how much I resented you," she points out.

Kayaba shrugs. "I missed you," he explains as if it's so simple. "Being with you—being wanted—was worth bearing your hatred."

Karma flinches. It's even more jarring to be spoken to so honestly by this person who, in a way, is more truthful to her than Heathcliff ever was.

"That's not right," is all she can say, and he chuckles.

"It is what it is," is all the explanation he offers.

She shakes her head, a lump rising in her throat. "You were always such a perfectionist. Why'd you settle for someone who couldn't care about you without hating you?"

He just shrugs again, looking almost awkward as he repeats, "It is what it is. Even now, I…" With a shake of his head, he confesses in a single breath, "I don't want you to go."

She inhales sharply, her fingers curling into fists; it takes everything she has to resist the urge to reach out for him. It'd only been last night that she echoed those same words, after she'd pushed and shoved him away for daring to feel the same.

"I know," she says, and knows too now that there's no other way forward. "But us being together now…it isn't doing either of us any favors. If you still care about me at all-"

"I do," he whispers. "More than you know."

"-then you'll let me leave. You'll let me go," she finishes, not bothering to hide her heartbreak at his words, spoken so raw, and she hates the mirroring look on his face, hates that she insisted on putting it there.

"Is that what you want?" he asks, and a feeble laugh escapes her lips.

"No. No, it's not," she admits freely. "I want you to never leave me again, but—that's just the problem, I can't tell love from pain anymore when I'm with you. I need to leave, so I can figure it out." A deep, shuddering breath trembles in her lungs. "So I can be me and move on."

All this time, she's been tearing herself down, letting her grief define who she is and what she does, making his mistakes over and over. And for what? To put herself in his shoes in order to understand why he left her?

She can learn from his mistakes without living them herself. She can learn from his grief that he never learned to let go of and instead followed down this path. He let his loss define him entirely; it colored his dreams and his acts and his intent so vividly that all that was left was shades of gray in his floating steel castle.

And when he wounded her, cut away so much of her with his blade, she let herself steep in the pain, cast aside everything she had left, and she let herself blame it all on him. Somehow, in the back of her head, she used his betrayal to justify turning her back on everyone who cared about her, she thought it made it okay to lash out back at him, but it didn't.

I can't do that anymore.

Not when it's hurting people who care about her. Especially not when it's hurting him too.

It aches to know that she still cares so deeply. It's something that will never change, and she wouldn't want it to either. It's a feeling that she can take pride in. It gave her strength to draw from, gave her a purpose and a meaning.

I fought for your dreams, for your ideals, for your visions, for your happiness, for you.

And she thinks she started letting them both down when she began to fight against those things out of spite. In the end, the people they've always been best at hurting are each other.

His eyes shine like broken glass. "And you have to leave for that to happen?"

"I think I do," she whispers. "I want to be with you, but I also want-" Her voice breaks slightly. "I may not deserve it, but I want someone who I can truly trust. And that's not you. Not anymore."

She hears a sharp intake of breath but no response, and she sighs.

"And maybe you don't deserve it either. But in a better world, maybe there would be someone who cares about all of you. Both Kayaba and Heathcliff."

Because they're different, but more importantly, they're the same. She couldn't bring herself to accept that, and hurt him because of it.

Shaking her head, she adds flatly, "Not me. I only want one." And that doesn't work.

"But you're all I ever wanted," he says, looking lost.

"You're settling," she accuses with a weary huff. "We deserved better than each other."

He opens his mouth, then closes it in defeat. They lapse into silence, and she lets herself bask in it for a moment or two, or perhaps a dozen. It doesn't feel so bad now, not like it has been feeling for the past few weeks. In Aincrad, silence was a time of peace, when neither of them needed to say anything. In Alfheim, it was suffocating because neither of them knew what to say. Now, it's something else entirely, something she's not quite sure how to put into words—no need to either.

"I wasn't lying, you know," she adds conversationally. "I loved Aincrad. You made something so beautiful, and…" With a sigh, she adds, "I won't say that it's okay that you turned it into that death game. Not at all. But...even that, I loved, in a certain way."

"You don't have to sugarcoat it."

"I'm not," she says, aiming a half-hearted glare at him, and his gaze lifts tentatively. "I don't lie to you. Your world that you built from the ground up…I loved it. I love you."

The words come easily, to no surprise. It's nothing new to her, it's not a sudden revelation she had in the moment; it was just something that became the truth over time. It was in every action, every swing of her blade, every smile and every tear. So it doesn't surprise her, but clearly, it surprises him in a way that hurts her.

"I wish I'd told you," she whispers. "I think it's one of my biggest regrets. I-" She swallows tears. "I told you I hated you before I ever told you how much I loved you."

It makes her afraid to ask when was the last time he remembers hearing those words. It's the first time she's ever said those words to him. She thought he always knew—maybe that was her very first mistake, assuming he would just know. And he probably did, in a logical way. Still, she's not sure if he ever understood. Maybe somewhere along the way, he forgot how to.

He still looks so confused, bewildered. "I thought you still hated me."

"I did," she says plainly. "But it doesn't mean I could've ever stopped loving you, even when you didn't love me back."

"I do. I always did."

For so long, she's been terrified of hearing those words, further evidence of everything she'd lost. Now, she just looks him in the eye.

"You didn't love me enough to choose me over the story of your steel castle when I needed you to the most," she whispers.

"And now I know I was wrong. I would take it back if I could," he pleads, but she won't let herself get swept into his gravity again.

"Maybe," she allows. "But you don't regret my pain. You just regret being a coward.

"You were too scared. In the past, when you loved someone, they left you behind." She takes a deep breath, closing her eyes briefly. "And when I tried to love you, you-" With a soft huff, she pulls her cloak tighter around herself, fingers curling at the edges. "You know, when I asked if you were really Kayaba, even after we all saw your immortal status icon…You could've lied. You could've said no, and I wanted Kirito to be wrong so much that I probably would've believed you."

"You were too smart for-"

"No, I wasn't," she says bluntly. "If I was that smart, we wouldn't be here. I told you, I had my illusions that I saw when I looked at you, and you have yours when you look at me. You think I would've known better, but I know I wouldn't have. I would've believed you if you'd lied, even if it put me against the world, but it doesn't matter." Shaking her head, she says, "You left me first anyways.

"And I'm no better," she admits in one sharp breath, "that's why I'm here. And that's why I have to go now. You're stuck in the past, and you made the choice to never move on when you scanned yourself into the digital world." She looks at him and tells him simply, "I need to move on."

Actions speak louder than words. Neither can be taken back—negated, perhaps, but never retracted fully. They leave memories, they leave marks, which is why it hurt so much when he left with everything that had made her into who she was.

I'll start again, then. I'll rebuild my world from the ground up—just like you did.

And her spite will never hurt him again this way.

"Didn't you say that if I believed in you, you'd follow me anywhere?" he asks with an almost dry tone of voice.

She breathes out a laugh, shaking her head at these words; how blissfully ignorant was she when she first said those words?

"Yeah," she agrees, "I did. And I didn't even know at the time, how much it would mean to me. I've made few promises in the last two years, but that one…" For a split second, she relives that memory, the moment when she pledged her life away. "That one lifted me up and gave me a dream—to be worthy of you."

And this—this kills him just a little more.

Worthy. He is the one who has never been worthy of her.

Plenty of people in the real world looked up to him, wished for his brains, his imagination, his creativity that he used to make the virtual world. Plenty of people admired him, plenty more were jealous, but they just cared about what he could do. They didn't care about the person behind it all, and he thought he was fine with that.

But Karma cared. Enough to step away when she finally realized she was hurting him, something that he, for all that she meant to him, was never able to bring himself to do.

(In his heart of hearts, he admits quietly to himself that maybe he does miss Rinko, just a little, because she was different too.)

"But I can't make the same mistake again," she continues. "Trusting you the first time was a mistake when you threw it away. And now, maybe you'll start to understand how I feel. I spent two years making choices I could never take back. I still live with my guilt. I will for the rest of my life, all because of you. And I want you to know what it's like, living with the consequences of your actions."

He was right about her, like he usually is. She is not cruel, not by nature. But there are people who can extend a hand of kindness and acceptance to those who have wronged them when they are vulnerable and defeated.

She is not one of those people.

"You know," she muses aloud, "I don't know if you've ever made me a single promise. And that's okay, it really is. I know how scary it is to set those expectations for yourself." Smiling wistfully, she continues, "For me, it made me strong...up until everything I was striving for was suddenly gone. And to answer your question, I don't know if I can uphold that promise I made to you while staying true to myself."

And that's the last thing he wants—for Karma to be anything less than herself.

He knows why she has to go, knows it in his mind, but not at all in his heart; his heart, for once, is screaming, even as she smiles crookedly.

"So I'll make a new one," she says. "I will live on." Pressing her lips together, she continues with a wobble to her voice, "I will live well. Somehow. I'll find a way, even without you there with me. Because you won't be there with me…I will keep living."

It's all he can do to nod. He has no right to ask any more of her.

"I have every faith that you will," he agrees. In an effort to distract and detach himself, he swallows hard and says, "Her name is Rinko. Koujiro Rinko. She's the kindest person I know."

Karma nods in acknowledgement, rising to her feet. "I'll find her."

The walls he's built are crumbling; his voice is small as he half-asks, half-pleads, "Will I see you again?"

Her cloak ripples as she shrugs a shoulder. "Probably. I love the virtual world too much to never come back. One day, I'll learn that you and it are not one and the same." Giving him a bitter smile, she adds, "But I don't think I'll see you again."

Kayaba nods slowly, and she whispers, "I'm sorry, by the way."

His eyes widen, looking like a deer caught in headlights. "Don't."

"For the way I treated you."

Shaking his head now, he protests weakly, "Don't—you shouldn't—between the two of us, I'm the one who-"

"Who never really wanted to hurt me," she points out, "whereas I-" She swallows hard. "I said the things I said because I was angry, and I wanted to make you hurt."

"I deserved it."

"I still shouldn't have done it." With a rueful smile, she admits, "The second I said those things…I saw the look on your face. The second thing I felt was regret. The first thing I thought was, good. So, I'm sorry. I wish I'd been better."

"I don't want to hear you apologize to me, of all people," he argues softly.

"I'm not apologizing for you. Not really. I'm apologizing for me." She shrugs, ducking her head. "I'm not asking you to forgive me. I'm not asking you to even accept my apology either. But I had to say it before I go, for my own sake. 'Cause I'm selfish like that, y'know."

Her hands twist together as she hesitates to gather her thoughts again; he wants to seize that hesitation, drag it on, anything that would give him just a little more time-

"I am leaving," she states simply, turning to face him squarely and look him in the eye, "because of what you did, and what that did to me. Because of what I've done, too. I have to make amends, and I can't do that here. But I know your mother didn't leave because of you."

The words hit like sledgehammers, and he can't find it in himself to do anything more than listen.

"It wasn't your choice. It wasn't your fault."

Her eyes are crystal clear for what he realizes is the first time since they met again, clouded with nothing, just like they were in Aincrad; this is the heart he loved, and as with all things in life, he realized too little too late.

With a sad little smile, she says, "I wish I'd been able to hear that when I was lost, and I wish someone was there to tell you that, but—just remember that when I'm gone."

She takes a step back, and he can't even bring himself to move a muscle. He feels rooted in place, frozen in time, like when he saw his mother's body; she was smiling too, but she never said-

"Goodbye."

Faced with her back, he finds himself reaching out a hand, blinding sunlight pouring through the gaps between his fingers (right where hers fit perfectly). Her form blurs out of focus suddenly, and he blinks, only to feel something warm and wet slide down his cheek.

He draws his hand back, just in time to catch a teardrop.

Astonished, he scrambles to his feet, nearly tripping over himself in a panic to show her this, to show her the proof—look, I can do better-

But when he blinks, she's gone.

o0o0o

we part too soon, but in our lies, there's a truth to find - BB's Theme (Jenny Plant, Ludovig Forssell)

let me be your favorite angel, just keep on moving on - Don't Forget Me (Nathan Wagner)


So. *claps hands together awkwardly* There we have it. I could totally dissect every line and action, but I'm just gonna leave this here ;)

This feels very surreal. O.o

By the way, don't you love these song lyrics? I know I do. Can't even tell whose POV they're from anymore either :D

There'll be an epilogue-ish chapter. It's done, but we'll see what I end up changing last minute, considering how many changes I've made to it already. It'll be a while though :') (Or maybe by saying this, I can reverse psychology myself into actually working on it soon...)

And then...that's it?