So...I was asked for a sequel by a few people (and I've had some ideas in mind for a while now), so here it is XD I won't put too much info up here, but if you haven't already, you'll probably need to read Retribution first to understand all of this.
That reminds me, thanks so much to the guests who left a review on the last chapter of Retribution! Sorry it took so long for me to get back to you, but I really appreciate it!
Also, just throwing this up here because I don't want it to get lost in the end notes: if you're looking for another Aincrad arc fic, you should check out 'Carry on, because life goes on' by deadnoble on AO3! It's a fic focusing more on the side characters, namely Liz, Argo, Klein, and a few others, that didn't get as much attention in canon. :)
Now, let's hop to it :D
minutes to midnight, got you on my mind - Sometimes Hearts Break (Nathan Wagner)
o0o0o
The light pierced sharp, blinding and dizzying. She rubbed her eyes and her ears, wincing, her legs feeling weak as the wind pushed her this way and that; she was standing on top of the world, but it was terrifying.
Words reached her as if she was underwater, no way to tell which way was up. It was all muffled; she strained to hear, to gather up the words like a starved person scrabbling for scattered crumbs.
Whirring started to drone in her ears, and she flinched, pressing the heels of her hands against the base of her ears. She needed to hear those words. They meant something to her, something important, she knew it, what was this droning sound-
She'd heard it before. Where had she heard it before-
Karma's hand flies to her head as she jerks awake, only to encounter nothing but wayward strands of her own hair and a cold sweat. No NerveGear preparing to fry her brain. No danger. No piercing light. No sharp winds.
No voices. It's just her.
Slowly, she lets her hand drop back to her side and falls back in bed, chest rising and falling as her breathing begins to even out again. Her room hasn't been touched in two years except to be dusted occasionally. Everything is where she left it, but it still felt like walking into a stranger's house; the smells were all wrong, her bed didn't feel like hers, the voices she was looking for weren't there.
"What I would give," she whispers out loud, "to go home."
o0o0o
Karma slouches in her too large, dark crimson hoodie against the side of the building, though her posture is the only part about her that's relaxed. Eyes constantly scanning the streets, her gloved fingers occasionally ghost across the grip of a folding knife in her pocket. It feels uncomfortably light, and it makes her feel off-kilter, but at least it's something.
"If only I could get away with carrying kaa-san's bokuto with me," she sighs. A wooden sword isn't exactly a replacement for the real thing, but it would make her feel slightly better.
Her eyes rove over the streets again, the action driven by some kind of instinctive unease. She's being watched, she knows it, and she has been for a while.
Instinctively, she jumps back, fingers curling under her hoodie to reach for her knife-
"Oh," she sighs, straightening up. "Give me a little warning next time, would you, Megu?"
Megu frowns, slowly lowering her outstretched hand. "I did. I called your name once when I turned the corner, and then twice more on the way down the street," she says dryly, pushing her glasses up on the bridge of her nose with her pinky.
Karma—no, Natsuki—blinks, scratching her head. "Oh. Sorry." It's so unlike her to be this unaware.
"Either way, you're the one who scared me," Megu says peevishly, walking past her in her heeled ankle boots, nose in the air. "Jeez, almost gave me a heart attack."
"My bad, my bad…"
A hint of a smirk from Megu lets Karma know she's forgiven, and the two old friends start down the street together.
"Nice gloves, by the way," Megu remarks, grabbing one of Karma's hands, turning it over to admire the dark crimson knit gloves. "Pretty color. Still a bit warm for them, though, huh?"
Karma shrugs, gently tugging her hand out of Megu's grip. "You're the one who wears combat boots in summer."
She lets Megu do all the talking, gossipping about her roommate and the love triangle (more like love pentagon) that said roommate is involved in. Listening with one ear, Karma watches the streets, unconsciously picking out all the little places that someone could be hiding in-
"Hey, are you even listening?"
"Yeah, 'course." At Megu's disbelieving expression, Karma explains, "You were talking about the guy that got into a fight with the group chat, right?"
Megu still looks suspicious, but Karma was listening, really. Multitasking was a necessary skill to pick up. "Uh-huh…"
She keeps talking all the way into the cafe that's their destination, an old haunt of theirs from their high school days. Although technically, Karma never finished high school, but that's barely a concern in her mind these days.
"I haven't been here in a while," Megu says lightly. Translation: She hasn't been here in two years, since Karma got stuck in SAO. "They better not have changed the menu too much."
The college student lets out a little cheer when they peruse the menu, which has not changed much indeed. "We'll have a kelp tea and a sakura milk tea-"
"Actually, can you make the milk tea a black coffee?" Karma interrupts quickly, and Megu gives her a weird look as the cashier adjusts the order.
After they get their drinks and pay, they find a table near the door and a window. Karma insists on taking the seat facing the door, alternating between watching people move around inside and outside the cafe.
"You hate coffee."
Karma shrugs, staring down at her dark reflection swimming in the coffee. "'Hate' is a pretty strong word." Although she does hate that she can't drink it piping hot without burning her tongue. It was never a problem in Aincrad.
"You hated it," Megu says bluntly, wrinkling her nose, "with a passion. And now you drink it black?"
All she can do is shrug again. Truth be told, she did drink tea, and she did it well into SAO. When the KoB got their first house, she was basically the de facto drink maker in the morning, since she usually got up much earlier than everyone else. For some reason, she was the only person who drank tea instead of coffee in the entire house back then. After getting tired of making both (and making enough coffee for a certain commander alone to fill a small lake), she converted and never looked back.
"Here, smile!"
Karma looks up in time for Megu to take a selfie picture of both of them. She slurps at her coffee while Megu types up a caption, no doubt to post it online, her painted nails clacking away a mile a minute.
She feels Megu lightly kick her under the table. "Go like the pic!"
Karma rolls her eyes in amusement. "Pushy," she snorts, swiping her fingers down.
Whatever snark Megu was preparing turns into confusion, brow furrowed. Karma stares, nonplussed, at the definite lack of a holographic menu floating in front of her.
Her lungs start to burn after she stares long enough. She breathes in, and breathes out.
Hiding part of her face in her coffee, she pulls her phone out of her pocket, thumbing through the apps to click the little heart under the picture Megu just posted. Megu's phone buzzes to alert her, but she barely reacts, still staring at Karma.
"How's college?" Karma asks in a blatant attempt to redirect the conversation. Normally, she's much better at this sort of thing…
Megu narrows her brown eyes, peering at her suspiciously through chocolate-colored bangs. "It's fine."
"Any annoying teachers?"
That sets her off, at least. Karma leans back in her seat, satisfied with her work, and sips at her coffee, happy to let Megu rant and vent.
She is happy. She is. Having her best friend back is almost the best thing ever that could've happened to her. Megu's face was the first thing she saw when she woke up, and that's something she'll never take for granted.
At first, she was afraid that Megu would've replaced her, found new friends to go to the cafe with, new friends to play video games and gossip and hang out at the local parks to pet all the dogs with.
But she didn't. She pulled Karma back into her life by the hand and didn't take no for an answer. When she offhandedly mentioned that she hasn't been to that cafe in, oh, about two years, and also actively turned down invites to go there, Karma could've cried. When Megu successfully defended her record in Super Smash Bros, cackling, the two of them sitting on the edge of her dorm bed, eyes glued to the tiny screen, Karma laughed for the first time since she woke up.
She is happy.
It's just not the same. It's not that kind of happy.
That kind of happy is found under warm lights, to the sound of NPC drums and flutes and harps and boots tapping to a rhythm (or not, if you're like Uzala and have two left feet).
That kind of happy is found in a shower of rainbow pixels, raining down in little pieces of light after a successful boss fight, when she's breathless and just about on her last legs, adrenaline rushing, heart still threatening to burst out of her chest.
That kind of happy is found in the quiet, in the rich colors of mahogany wood soaking up the light of a single lamp, in soft voices and warm hands and the luxury of simply being with someone who's like you, who has found security in the knowledge that they are not the only broken thing in the world.
That kind of happy is the kind she left behind in Aincrad.
The kind he took with him when he left.
o0o0o
"Okaeri, kaa-san," Karma calls without looking up as the door opens.
With their chubby cat Botamochi winding around her ankles, she checks on the noodles, her stomach grumbling as she sniffs delicately. Cooking in real life is much harder than in Aincrad, at least from where Karma was standing. She never did any of it, but she liked keeping Asuna company while the brunette did it. Then again, Asuna had her cooking maxed out, so maybe it would've been harder otherwise.
The aroma of cooking food brings memories out of the cupboards where they were gathering dust, memories of easy conversations and jokes, of a sharp eye and a quick hand swatting Karma away when she tried to steal morsels off the plate.
She slams the door shut on those memories; it doesn't do any good to let them bounce her around at their whims, but here in the warmth of her apartment, in the company of family, she feels more alone than ever, her own sister in a place too far away for even a phone call to reach.
Moving to where the eggs are boiling, she quickly turns off the heat and lifts the small pot off the stove, although she's caught off guard when she nearly drops it. Cursing her complete lack of strength at the moment, she carefully drags the pot over to the sink with both hands. Steam pours out as she empties the hot water, leaving boiled eggs behind.
Without thinking, she reaches in to grab the eggs, only to recoil with a quiet hiss, quickly turning on the cold water to run her hand under it. Her dark red wool gloves are discarded on the counter next to her, an unfortunate necessity; the disposable latex gloves she's wearing are too thin to block the heat.
"Really gotta stop doing that," she mutters. Pain is still a novelty, and still not in a good way. "I can practically see you rolling your eyes at me. Stop it."
She's not hearing voices. She just wishes she was. Maybe then she wouldn't feel so lonely.
Leaving the eggs to cool, she scoops udon into three bowls; she tries to focus on the lingering pain in her fingers rather than that in her chest, a loneliness that even Megu's spunky presence doesn't stave off.
"Mmm, something smells delicious," her mother's voice comes from the living room, sounding exhausted.
"Natsuki made udon tonight," her father informs her mother excitedly as he sets the table.
Karma starts slightly, a bit of soup slopping onto the floor, at the sound of the unfamiliar name-
Then her brain catches up, and she quickly wipes away the spilled soup before Botamochi can get his greedy paws in it. She wonders when she'll get used to the sound of what should be her own name again, if ever.
Her mother goes to shower—the hospital smell of antiseptic is hard to wash out, especially when she's been working there for such long hours ever since SAO ended—and her father comes to help her with dinner.
"You really don't have to-"
"I know," she says, sprinkling a bit of green onion in each bowl. "But there's nothing better to do, and I'll have to learn to cook eventually."
Lie. Well, not really—half-truth. After being poisoned at dinner out in the field by a former ally and then nearly murdered by their orange player compatriots, Karma made a point to never accept cooked food that Asuna didn't make, or that she didn't keep a literal eye on during the entire process.
Old habits die hard, she supposes.
"Plus, you and kaa-san both get home later these days, so I might as well," she says breezily, turning to pick up her bowl.
Anything but the truth, because the truth doesn't sit well with her either.
They sit down to eat dinner with the TV playing in the background. Karma chitchats with her parents, asking them about their days, nodding amicably while they talk.
The food tastes like cardboard, like it has every day since she woke up. Her parents don't show any indication of noticing, and she follows recipes to the letter, so she figures it's just another Karma thing.
"...say that Kayaba Akihiko, the engineer of the NerveGear and the creator of Sword Art Online, is still at large-"
"-poor kid, he got a blood clot in his leg and it'll probably be some time before he can walk again," her mother is saying, and Karma tries to tune her out.
"-some say that he is the one responsible for the three hundred SAO players who still have yet to awake."
Ridiculous. He promised to set them all free, and he never broke a promise. Her fists clench on the table.
"...ki. Natsuki?"
She blinks when her father suddenly stands up, almost tripping over his chair to grab the remote. Before she can say a word, he quickly turns off the TV, plunging the apartment into awkward silence.
"I'm sorry, I should've been paying more attention," he apologizes, sitting back down uneasily. "You shouldn't have to watch—I know it was—I mean...well."
Karma doesn't miss the split second look her parents exchange. Her father offers an awkward smile. She's getting so good at this that she smiles right back without missing a beat.
They have no idea. It was impossible to keep quiet at first, with how many people saw the end happen, and stories circulated on the media for some time. The government reacted quickly though, and they shut them down-ostensibly to protect her privacy, but they just didn't want the 'hero' to be someone with so much blood on her hands. It's fine with her; she never needed or wanted to be a hero, and she doesn't need the complication of the people around her knowing who she really is.
But they think she's fragile. They're wrong. She's weak, but not so easily broken. But it takes effort she doesn't care to expend to convince them otherwise, so she tucks that part of her away, the sharp edges they don't want to see.
o0o0o
Karma pulls the door shut, eyes doing a precursory sweep around her room. She locks the door behind her with a click and goes to the window, drawing back the blinds. She sweeps the streets carefully until she's sure nothing's out of the ordinary.
With a sigh, she flops back onto her bed in the corner. She takes out the knife in her pocket and stows it under her pillow before reaching for the shelf above the headboard.
Her breath fogs up on the gray, translucent visor of the NerveGear as she runs her hands over the cool blue metal, pressing her forehead against the 'forehead' of the device.
"It's all your fault," she whispers, a knot of sorrow tightening in the spot under where her necklace should be. "I don't trust anyone anymore…It really sucks, you know."
Bzzz. Bzzz. Bzz-
She grabs her phone. "Moshi moshi, Kirito-kun," she says lazily, sitting up. "What's up?"
"Hey, Karma," his young voice replies. "You remember that Kikuoka-san I was telling you about, right? The one who told me where Asuna was?"
She pulls her knees up, tucking the scuffed and dented NerveGear in close to her chest, as close as possible (still not enough). "Sure, I remember."
"He had a few questions for me that I thought you'd be better equipped to answer."
She stifles a sigh. "Yeah, sure, fire away."
After she woke up, in exchange for information on the game as one of the most knowledgeable players, she was given back her NerveGear, as well as the real life contact information of some of her closest friends. Kirito didn't exactly fall into that group—to be honest, she has very mixed feelings on the guy, for various reasons—but she didn't hesitate to contact people like him, Argo, and other acquaintances that were important in SAO.
"Um, actually, he wanted to talk to you in person."
She blinks, nonplussed, still hugging the NerveGear possessively with one arm. "He wants to fly all the way out here just to talk to me?" she asks in disbelief.
"Well...yeah."
"I mean, I get that I probably had the most experience with orange players out of everyone in the game, but it's not like you never ran into the bastards either."
"No," he agrees, with more weight in his voice than any seventeen-year-old kid ought to have, "but you're also the one who...y'know. Cleared the game."
"Oh," she says, very smartly. "That."
Kirito laughs awkwardly. "Yeah...that."
Is it stupid to say that it feels almost irrelevant? Sure, the death game they've been fighting and fighting and fighting for two years is over. She's not sure if she's any better off for it.
Besides, the bomb was dropped before the game was ended. It just feels like a side effect added onto...well, the other thing.
"You were the one who was supposed to do it," she argues half-heartedly. "I kinda stole your thunder, to be fair."
"What matters is that it's over."
She closes her eyes, letting her phone fall to the bed next to her. "...Yeah."
It is well and truly over. Two years of trying to conquer the floating castle, of fighting monsters and demons worse than monsters, of staining her hands so red that it'll never come out. Two years of tears and grief and sorrow and anguish, of loss and death and-
Two years of wandering Aincrad, seeing all the landscapes she'd never be able to in real life, of late nights spent talking and laughing and just being.
"Would you like to live with your soul in the grave?"
"Can I take it back?" she whispers to the empty room. "I know I said I'd try, but I wanna take it back." She asks this every day.
"...Karma? You there?"
With a sigh, she picks her phone back up. "Yeah?"
"So...what should I tell him? Kikuoka-san?"
"Sure. Whatever. What's one more?" she sighs, tracing a scratch in her NerveGear with one fingernail.
"Um, okay. I'll let him know." He hesitates, with all the awkwardness of a teenage boy. "How's rehab?"
"It's fine. My body came through pretty intact. It's mostly just getting my strength back." Her mother and all the other hospital staff are being run ragged. Many people woke up with some kind of physical issue from being asleep for so long. Karma is one of the lucky few who didn't.
"How's Asuna?" she asks quietly.
Kirito sighs, his tone similarly lackluster. "Same, I guess."
Waking up only to find that the one comfort she'd expected wouldn't be there was crushing. She has Uzala and Kili and all of her other friends from KoB, and she calls them regularly enough. But only Asuna could ever come close to being a substitute for him in any capacity. Only Asuna could ever come close to understanding. And she never did anything to deserve to be trapped still.
So why?
"Alright, go to bed," she says, closing her eyes. "You're a growing kid, you need your sleep."
Kirito snorts in amusement. "Okay, okay. Good night."
"Yeah, good night…"
With a sigh, she sets her phone back down on her nightstand. Reaching for the shelf again, she grabs the shiny new book she just bought a few days ago and cracks it open, thumbing through the pages with a gloved hand. The spine still creaks a bit; it's that new.
She reads obsessively, picking apart every word. Looking for something, anything that'll give her some insight. She's read this book four times front to back already in the four days since she bought it, and she's learning something new every time she rereads it.
It takes her back, even, to late nights when she knew she should be sleeping because she might have to fight for her life alone tomorrow, but she just couldn't drift off. She'd crack open the book and read until the words drift off the page and lull her to sleep. He did take his handle from this book, so it would almost feel like he was there with her, his steady presence setting her at ease until she can sleep at last.
But it's different now. As she shuts the book about two hours later, her mind is buzzing with questions demanding answers where there aren't any. She still can't help but dwell on them anyways, even though she knows it can't be good for her.
She checks the time. On silent feet, she pads out of her room and slips into her parents' room, quiet as a ghost. After listening for several minutes, she deems their breathing to be even and deep enough that they're definitely asleep.
About ten minutes later, she returns to her room with coffee—probably not the best decision to make minutes to midnight, but she can't bring herself to care. It's the only thing she can taste these days, which is ironic, considering she couldn't stand the taste of it only two years ago.
She drags the chair out from her desk and sits down, setting the NerveGear on the desk in front of her while nursing her coffee.
"I bet you don't have coffee, wherever you are," she mumbles, and slurps pointedly, only to hiss in pain when it burns her tongue. Gritting her teeth, she slouches and wriggles lower into her massive, oversized hoodie, drawing her knees up underneath it and pulling it tighter around herself.
"I don't like being hurt," she mutters petulantly, curling her bare toes around the edge of her chair. It's comfortable, but not comfortable in the familiar way she got used to.
She got used to it all, and sometimes, she never even remembered that they were all trying to leave it behind.
Suddenly, she realizes that without even meaning to, she brought two cups instead of one, and tears prickle in her eyes when she realizes that she doesn't need to and can't bring him coffee anymore. As minute and completely insignificant as it is, it leaves just as big a hole as the rest.
"I miss everything," she whispers into her knees.
The NerveGear doesn't respond, and the coffee grows cold.
o0o0o
In the morning, she wakes up in her bed. She could swear she fell asleep in her chair; her back is sore enough to prove it. And when she gets up, both coffees are drained, the remnants dried and crusty at the bottom.
"Don't be cruel," she accuses wearily, because the last thing she needs is to get her hopes up...again.
o0o0o
waist deep in thought because when I think of you, I don't feel so alone - Vanilla Twilight (Owl City)
maybe it's good you're gone, but it still leaves me wanting you to finally just tell me the truth - Perfect Doesn't Last (Beth Crowley)
As one of my real life friends with a penchant for sarcasm enjoys saying, Everything Is Great. SAO's over, most people are free and getting back to normal! What could possibly be wrong with this? Everything is great.
Karma's real name is Akane Natsuki, but I still use the name Karma in narration because that's how she still thinks of herself. She lives in Miyazaki prefecture, which is in Kyushu. Her parents are normal (her mother's a nurse, and her father is a high school teacher). Her friend Megu is pretty normal (she's the same age as Karma, 19-20 ish, but one year ahead in school, so she's in college right now).
Karma...looks normal.
Did I mention that everything is great?
Anyways, different story format for this. The mini chapter/episodes thing wasn't going to work for this one. There's gonna be more chapters, but shorter ones on average. This is probably one of the longer ones (I say probably, because whenever I say stuff like this, it ends up being a straight up lie XD) Let's see how this goes.
The centered lines at the beginning and end of the chapters are song lyrics. I was originally just going to do one per chapter at the beginning as the chapter 'title'...but there were just too many good ones and it got just a little out of hand XD (i.e. these lyrics just...go together so well) I listen to a bunch of them while writing, and I cannot tell you how much time I have spent picking these lyrics. Every time I think they're good the way they are, I stumble upon a new song and I'm like 'omg I have to include this' and it's kind of a problem :D Overall story title is a song by Nathan Wagner (amazing artist), and I feel like it pretty neatly sums up how Karma feels towards Heathcliff now.
My other idea for the title was 'A Choice to Change', a little like the last chapter of Retribution, because it has a double meaning too: she can change her choice that she made, and/or she can choose to change. Ehhhh? XD (Spoiler (not really): she'll have to do a little bit of both in this fic ;))
Anyways, this is going to be a very different story from Retribution in some ways. Some things will be the same...some things won't.
Let me know what you think :)
