Once more after a party I was late getting out of bed. While I had not drank any alcohol like many of the other party goers I had not been able to slip away. People wanted to constantly question myself and Kazuto about being beaters. Apparently some people had been raising quite a stir about us joining in the fights.
When I woke up I snuck into Kazuto's bed and poked him awake. I wanted to discuss with him the idea of making a guild. Me, him and Lizbeth. I hoped that by doing so we could change our reputation from beaters to a respected guild that helps clear the floors.
Kazuto must have felt the bed shift because he woke up and rolled over to face me.
"Sugu? What are you doing in my bed?" He asked sleepily, rubbing his eyes.
"I wanted to be close to you and speak to you about something."
He looked at me and wrapped his arm around me. I couldn't help but let my mind wander. It felt so good to be held by Kazuto. But I needed to talk to him so I tried not to think about it.
"Kazuto, I want us to form a guild. You would lead it as the most skilled player I know. We can find people who don't discriminate against us as beaters. Like Lizbeth."
I could see the cogs turning in Kazuto's head. He didn't need me to tell him what I was asking made sense. If the people that joined would be unbiased it would only help us grow as players.
"I think more people would follow you Sugu." Kazuto said after some time.
"It has to be you. The way you process battles and know how to react to situations makes you the best candidate."
He could clearly see I was not going to be swayed and sighed. I snuggled closer to him seeing that he was not going to say no.
I was quite pleasantly surprised when Kazuto hugged me tighter and I felt my heart skip a beat. I was so in trouble. I looked up into Kazuto's eyes and smiled at him. I was happy to see him smile back.
We stayed in bed like this for a short while just hugging and enjoying the others' embrace.
After sometime like this we finally got ready to face the day. Instead of exploring Floor Five we descended to floor three where we would be able to do a quest allowing the formulation of a guild.
The quest turned out to be really easy; it just required a small fortune of start up Col in order to form. Paying half each we managed to form a guild and went in search of Lizbeth.
Thanks to the tracking skill we found Lizbeth pretty easily in a smith shop on floor four. She was currently using the facilities to upgrade her mace.
When she saw us she let out a shocked gasp seeing the symbol near our names.
"What the heck is that?" Lizbeth almost shouted pointing above our heads where our names would sit.
"That is exactly why we came to find you." I responded, hiding my laughter at her surprise.
"Play nice Leafa." Kazuto scolded lightly though his face was filled with amusement.
"You joined a guild? Wait, whose?" Lizbeth asked, still trying to piece together what had happened.
"Well actually it's his." I said pointing to Kazuto. Watching Lizbeth's reaction to this news made me laugh out loud and before I could stop tears were in my eyes.
Lizbeth, who seemed to be a little upset that we were not giving her answers, hit me on the arm and I stopped laughing.
"Leafa here persuaded me to start a guild. Our reputation isn't exactly great on the front despite our skills. Leafa thought that if we formed a guild and made a name for ourselves that might change."
Lizbeth seemed to be thinking it over and smiled happily. She walked straight up to Kazuto and stopped in front of him.
"I want to join," She told him, making me smile. Kazuto without hesitation added her to the guild. I smiled happily as our guild symbol appeared by her name.
"Kintsugi?" She asked once her acceptance was complete.
"It means to repair." Kazuto told her. She smiled happily. "
"That explains the anvil in the guild symbol. I like the crossed swords in the background. I assume that represents you two?"
"I told you she was a smart one Kirito" I told Kazuto upon hearing Lizbeth's response.
"We wanted you to be the first to join us. We like you Lizbeth." I added looking at her and hugging her for the first time.
The hug was a short one and one Lizbeth returned smiling at me. She moved to hug Kazuto too, I almost laughed seeing that he was not really comfortable hugging her.
She seemed to realise this and let him go apologising lightly. Kazuto played it off but I could tell he was happy she let him go.
"Have you considered who else to add to your guild?" Lizbeth asked but was interrupted by Kazuto.
"It's our guild not mine. I just own it." I tried not to roll my eyes at his response and decided to talk.
"Well we were actually thinking Agil Might be a good addition. He is strong and he worked well with us on floor three and four."
Lizbeth seemed to consider this for a moment and nodded her head in consent.
"I agree I think he would be a good addition."
With all three of us in agreement we went in search of Agil. From what Kazuto had heard Agil made a trade buying and selling items. His goal was to own a shop.
We found him on floor five. When we caught up to him he was slaying a horde of mobs he had encountered. I was impressed at the speed and accuracy he could wield his gigantic axe.
Once he had cleaned the mobs he headed over to us as like Lizbeth he noticed the symbol by our name.
"Kirito my man you joined a guild. Bout time man." He said clasping Kirito on the back, making me very grateful he did not do that to me.
To be on the safe side I moved away from Agil slightly. He saw my reaction and gave a hearty laugh.
"I am guessing you ain't out her by coincidence?" Agil asked us.
"Not in the slightest." I responded happily but not elaborating.
"We want you in our guild Agil." Kazuto told him.
Agil looked shocked for a moment as he looked between the three of us that had come to ask him.
"I'm so in" Agil said, offering a fist bump to Kazuto then me and Lizbeth after Kazuto had fist bumped him.
"A good start we have made" I said happily rushing past Agil to fight some mobs that had respawned.
We spent the rest of the day talking about our goals for the guild. Agil seemed particularly happy we wanted to change the reputation we have.
Agil had toyed with and suggested that we add Asuna to the guild. Asuna was a particularly skilled swordswoman. The problem with Asuna though was she only cared for clearing the game.
While this was not necessarily a bad thing, Kazuto and I didn't share this opinion. We wanted to enjoy this world while we were here and if that meant not focusing on floor bosses they were not going to do it.
I was of the opinion that right now Asuna would not like the laid back pace that Kazuto and I had planned for our guild. It was decided that we would still party up with her for floor raids, If she wanted that, but not extend an invite right now.
The next day I was shocked when I woke up to see Christmas trees and Christmas decorations all over the inn and the town. It was then I realised it was christmas day.
I suddenly had a spike of sadness that I had not gotten a present for Kazuto. Knowing he was still asleep I sprinted out of the inn to find something he would like. It needed to be personal but practical that would be best for Kazuto.
After enlisting Argo to help me I found a crafter that could make unique accessories. After giving it much thought I had the perfect gift and returned to the inn.
Kazuto was awake by this point and looked happy to see I had returned. I hugged him lightly and kissed his cheek.
"Merry christmas Kazuto"
Kazuto smiled at me when I kissed him and he held me tightly before kissing my cheek on return.
"Merry Christmas Sugu." He responded.
Surprising myself, I kissed Kazuto on the lips. Hearing him call me Sugu always made my heart skip a beat and I couldn't help myself.
"Sugu we shouldn't, we're family." He said after kissing me lightly in return.
"I don't care Kazuto. You must know I love you."
I told him quickly not wanting him to push me away. I pushed myself close to him, refusing to let go.
"I know that yes Suguha and I am pretty sure I am falling in love with you too."
Before he could say anything else I cut him off.
"Then let's fall in love and let it happen. I love you Kazuto."
Kazuto did not respond right away but after a moment he kissed me once more.
"Let's see how things go. I don't want to rush into anything Sugu."
"Good enough for me," I said, finally pulling away.
Now that I had confessed and Kazuto accepted my feelings I pulled out the watch I had bought him. It was something small but I knew he would like it.
I was shocked to see he had given me a beautiful hairpin in the shape of a leaf. I quickly put it on and hugged Kazuto once more.
After eating a small breakfast alone in our bedroom we decided to meet with our friends and spend the day with them. When we arrived Lizbeth hugged me lightly.
Though she did not hug Kazuto she smiled at him and I could see the friendship they shared was as strong as mine with her.
I spent most of Christmas day trying to encourage Agil and Kazuto to sing Christmas songs with me and Lizbeth. It was a fun day and we ended it by getting a large christmas dinner.
After Christmas Kazuto and I focused on finding the boss room to floor 6. We wanted to be the ones to find it so we could present our new guild along with the information.
Agil and Lizbeth had decided to leave the search to us to focus on their own goals. Goals Kazuto and I were happy to help them accomplish if we could.
To our happiness we found the boss room and examined the boss while we were there. The floor Five boss seemed to be filled with trash mobs so the only thing we could assume was the mobs needed to be defeated in order to bring out the boss.
We decided to kill some of the mobs to see what would happen. These mobs looked to be some sort of Mantis like creatures.
After quite easily dispatching the mobs scattered around a loud buzzing filled the area and a giant wasp flew down to attack us.
Deciding we had seen enough and not wanting to risk our lives needlessly we used a warp crystal to return to floor five.
Once there we contacted Asuna, Argo, Klein and a few more people from the front line that we had contacts with. We called the meeting for noon the next day to give people time to get to the meeting point.
Close to sixty people were gathered to participate in this raid. It seemed like the better we did at clearing the game the more people wanted to help.
Those that knew me and Kazuto were not particularly happy to see us standing in the centre of the room. As the room filled with chatter was breakin out about the symbols by our names.
I could hear people demanding to know who would add us to their guild. Most seem to think Agil was the one to do it and he was receiving many bad looks. Though he appeared to shrug them off as easy as they came.
Once it looked like everyone had gathered, Kazuto started to address the people gathered. Since most people wanted to know about the boss most did not question aloud his leading the information telling.
Once the meeting was over many people swamped us trying to question us about our guild. After confirming Kazuto had made it, a lot of people left.
Though I was surprised to see a fair number stay too. We made idle chatter with the ones that stayed for a short while before excusing ourselves.
For the rest of the day our guild went over fighting tactics and how best to fight together. We wanted to show just how skilled we could be as a guild.
In the past floor fights we had been tasked with fighting floor boss minions or flanking while trying to hide under the radar.
In this fight we worked our way into the front spot declaring we would act as party one. While this made a fair few people mad at us, others wanted to see just what we could do.
Using the knowledge that our foe was a flying enemy we had Lizbeth make large spikes. During the fight we had Agil lur the giant to the sides of the battle area and Lizbeth nailed the beast to the walls.
The plan worked well for long enough to get the wasp into the red. But once we had it in the red it got a strength boost and became erratic targeting people at seemingly random.
It was good fortune that no one was seriously injured during the wasps frenzy.
With the plan executed so well the fight was over much quicker than anyone expected and not a single person had died.
The tactics of our guild were praised and the general consensus about our group had shifted slightly. This in our opinion warranted a celebration.
During the fight that had passed I was quite surprised Asuna did not join our party. She had instead decided to party up with a great shielder.
Instead of celebrating with everyone else our guild decided on a private party in a new inn on floor six so that we could explore right away the next day.
