Welcome to Chapter Ten! I'm sorry that Chapter Nine ended on a cliffhanger, but for some reason, I couldn't write past that point, as though an invisible cap was on the document. Anyways, the main protagonist of Sword Art Online, Kazuto Kirigaya, was introduced in the last chapter, and during this one, I'll build up on his character some more. Also, two things. One, ItsaPOSSUM is an old profile of mine that I named after my old dog, and two, I'm introducing Jaymes from the Crimson Warrior Chronicles in this chapter. Thank you for reading and please leave a follow, favorite, and review.
Kirigaya Residence, Kawagoe
Japan, Real World
May 28, 2022
Kazuto Kirigaya
"He's my new friend and student, Onii-san, and I started it, so please put the shinai down so we can talk."
Suguha's words cut through him like butter, unlike the shinai held by the intruder she just defended, and it was those words that Kazuto understood. Slowly, and reluctantly, Kazuto relaxed and dropped the shinai he held, stepping backwards as to avoid any surprise attacks. However, the unknown boy exhaled in relief and dropped his weapon.
"Thank you, Suguha!" he said, relieved.
What the hell am I witnessing? Kazuto asked himself as he watched Suguha make sure that the intruder wasn't suffering from any lasting injuries. What if he's actually a friend or something? But still, who is he? He's pretty tall, and he certainly doesn't look Japanese.
"I'm sorry about that, Onii-san." Suguha addressed him. "I didn't think to tell you that I was bringing a friend over or anything and this happened. Oh, gosh, I'm so sorry!"
"It's fine." he and the strange boy told her simultaneously, with Kazuto stiffening after hearing the boy speak to her.
"B-but--"
"It's okay, I don't blame him one bit." the boy assured her. "I would have done the same thing if I was in his shoes."
Kazuto watched the ordeal go down and somewhere in his fragmented heart, something squirmed uncomfortably within. Here stood a boy of presumably foreign descent that he had never spoken to talking with Suguha and being friendly to her with no problem, as if he knew her for his whole life, and he couldn't fathom why. But after a while, he figured out what bugged him so much: this boy was currently being the big brother Kazuto should have been to Suguha, while something caused him to become a stranger to her, and after hardly any thought at all, he remembered.
It all went down in his tenth year of life. While Suguha practiced kendo in the yard, young Kazuto had found some rather... interesting documents on his computer. They were supposed to have been deleted, but apparently were not, since the boy was accessing them just then. This was where he learned the truth.
He wasn't a Kirigaya by birth.
His original surname was Narusaka.
His real parents died in a car crash when he was one year old and his mother's sister took him in as her own.
These facts all added up to one thing: the people he lived with weren't even his real family, and he was actually a misfit who was made to believe that he did fit in that home. Kazuto didn't know what to as his hand sat uselessly on his mouse while his eyes glared at the documents that were on his computer screen.
He felt a shard of ice puncture his chest, burying itself deep into his heart, no, his entire soul, and filling him with anguish. How could they have lied to him like that? Why did they lie to him like that? And was Suguha in on this?
Kazuto decided to confront his "mother" and "father" about this. It was the only thing he could do to figure out why he was betrayed in such a horrifying way.
"Hey, Onii-san?"
The question snapped Kazuto to attention, and he looked at Suguha with a look of... what? Jealousy? Guilt?
"Um, what, Sugu?" he asked her awkwardly.
"I want to formally introduce you to my friend." Suguha replied.
"Okay..." Kazuto said, the air of awkwardness still evident.
"Um, Ian-san, this is Kazuto, my older brother."
Kazuto winced, the pain in his heart increasing as the word "brother" was spoken regarding him. Even now, that lie hurt him in a way that nothing else did. Not even the vicious beating his grandfather had given him for quitting kendo hurt as much as that lie did.
"Kon'nichiwa, Kazuto." the foreign boy named Ian bowed at him.
"Onii-san, this is Ian-san, a boy from America."
America... no wonder he's so tall.
"Kon'nichiwa, Ian." Kazuto bowed back, hoping that the boy wasn't secretly still angry at him.
"I wish we met under different circumstances, but it's nice to meet you, Kazuto." Ian said, chuckling.
"Yeah. Nice to meet you."
"Just so you know, I've got no hard feelings or anything. Like I said before, I would have done the same thing." Ian bent down and picked up the dropped shinais, placing them back into the barrel and neatly rearranging them again, since Kazuto had messed them up pulling the third one out earlier.
"Um, should we help clean this or what?" a masculine voice asked, alerting Kazuto to the tall, black haired man in the dojo and putting his guard up again.
"I'd help clean it, Al." Ian told him, moving on to the floor to clean it up. "Oh, just so you're not confused, Kazuto, that's my brother, Allan. He came here to supervise me and Suguha's match, but we told him to stay out of it even if things got hectic."
"And I also kind of wanted to see Ian get his butt kicked, but he held out better than I thought."
"That doesn't seem very kind." Kazuto said matter-of-factly.
"Well, we've got a weird relationship, so it's nothing." Ian chuckled again.
"Um, okay. Let's just clean this up."
After cleaning up the dojo (thankfully for the four, Kazuto ran into the dojo barefoot, so he didn't leave footprints on the floor from his shoes), they quickly returned outside, with Kazuto feeling very uncomfortable about the situation. Here he was standing outside with her sister/cousin and two of her friends who seemed like they were already used to Japan and its customs while he just hung with them, feeling acutely awkward amongst the others.
Kazuto still couldn't figure out if Suguha had lied to him as well, since his aunt and uncle never clarified that, but based on her behavior, she was probably oblivious to the truth, not hiding it, at least.
"Um, Kazuto?" Ian adressed him, snapping him from his thoughts again. "What kind of games do you play?"
Kazuto was now a bit more confused than he already was. Mere minutes ago, he was in a kendo match with Suguha and now he just asked him what kind of games he played. Americans were strange, he decided.
"Uh, I usually play MMORPGs and stuff, but I play Destiny 2 sometimes." he replied. "Destiny might be a bit simpler than what I'm used to, but it's alright. I'm going to apply for the beta test for Sword Art Online next month."
While Suguha turned a blind eye to the topic (she was very anti-gamer) and Allan looked at Kazuto as though he just spoke heresy (about Destiny 2 being simplistic, Ian's head perked up and he grinned a little.
"That's cool. I play Destiny 2 as well, but you look like a PC gamer. I'm on Xbox, so we'd have to crossplay if we wanted to play together."
"What are you two even talking about?" Suguha asked the two teenagers.
"Video game stuff, Suguha." Ian replied. "I told you that I liked video games, too, remember?"
"Oh, yeah. Silly me."
"So, are you intetested in Sword Art Online?" Kazuto asked Ian.
"Um, yeah. Allan wanted to get his hands on it and the NerveGear since he's curious about them. I'm curious as well, but I'm here for other reasons."
"Like?"
"Well, the scenery, and the idea of visiting another country. I've always been interested in Japanese culture." Ian smiled.
"Oh, that's nice to know." Kazuto told the other boy, feeling incredibly awkward. He hoped that Ian didn't hear his awkward tone of voice, but too late, the boy had noticed him.
"Um, are you alright, Kazuto?"
"Sorry, I'm not really used to talking to people face-to-face, that's all." he answered.
"That's okay. I usually have trouble with socializing, too. But your sister is pretty exceptional."
For some reason, fate was really messing with Kazuto. First, he ended up going to the dojo and attacking a friend of Suguha's, then he was forced to socialize much more than he was used to, and now he was constantly being reminded of that lie. He wanted to tell the truth to Ian, but he didn't know the American too well, and he didn't trust easily, so that was out of the window.
"Yeah, she is." he told Ian instead.
Ian whispered something in Suguha's ear, and after she nodded, he turned to Kazuto and asked him, "Hey, Kazuto? Do you want to talk about some stuff inside?"
"Um, sure, if it isn't personal stuff."
"Okay. I had no intentions of doing so, anyways."
Ian Becker
After Suguha left to make lunch, the two tennagers grouped up in Kazuto's room to talk about their gaming lives, which they were completely comfortable with talking about. Although, when Ian entered the room, he didn't expect to enter such a tidy room or such a magnificent PC setup. The table the triple-screened monitor sat on was long and smooth, and a high-quality keyboard and mouse sat in front of the monitor. Under it, a medium-sized PC sat flush with the wall, its streamlined design and specialized parts implying custom assembly.
When Kazuto saw Ian staring at his setup with awe in his eyes, he merely chuckled in response.
"Hey, Ian, is my setup that interesting?" he asked, amused.
"It's just... so much better than what I've got back home!" he exclaimed, truly in nerd mode as he expressed his awe.
"Yeah. That's a custom PC with a very powerful processor." Kazuto walked over to the setup and moved his mouse, taking it out of screensaver mode. Right now, the title screen for Destiny 2 showed, displaying the "Still There?" notice.
"Um, did I interrupt your game, Kazuto?" Ian asked.
"No. I was in orbit, waiting for a friend of mine to show up." the raven-haired boy replied, clicking on the start tab and watching the game load.
"I understand."
When the character screen loaded in, Ian saw a Warlock in black and silver-trimmed armor wielding a Sidearm.
"I'm not too terribly high-leveled, but I'm high enough to go into the raids and Nightfalls." Kazuto explained.
"Eh, I'm not too high up there, either, but I'm high enough for Trials, and that's enough for me."
"That high-end PvP mode, right?"
"Yeah. I'm more of a PvP fan when it comes to Destiny, since I rather like the unpredictability it has." Ian explained, noticing the simple name Kazuto gave himself: Kirito, before he selected the Warlock and logged in.
"What's your gamertag?" Kazuto asked.
"ItsaPOSSUM. It's written in English, there aren't any spaces between words, and the word 'possum' is in all caps. And let me guess, Kirito is a combination of your two names."
"You got me." Kazuto held up his hands in mock surrender.
"Yeah, I'm usually not that creative." Ian said.
"I don't think that some stranger is going to deduce that Kirito means Kirigaya Kazuto."
"Nobody's gonna know who I am anyway. When the profile setup asked me to put in a second name, I ended up putting the word redacted in all caps instead of adding my name."
He watched as Kazuto checked his friends list and saw a red nameplate among the empty friend slots, embossed with a black phoenix and bearing the English-written gamertag "JaymesTheFirst" on it.
"Okay, now he's on."
"Who?" Ian asked, his interest piqued.
"He's a friend I met during an Iron Banner match. We ended up joining each other and we ended up friending each other."
"That's cool. I've only got one friend other than Suguha, but she's one of Destiny's best PvP players."
"Oh, really? Maybe she could give me some advice." Kazuto chuckled. "I have a lot of trouble shooting in this game."
"So I take it that you use Sidearms because they're easier to use for you." Ian said. "And you do not want advice from her."
"Why not?"
"Her form of teaching, as well as Allan's, is through private matches, and they never go easy on you. They teach new players to get good by forcing them to use new tactics to beat them and in the process, the player they're teaching gets better at the game because they had to adapt to their enemy's playstyle and come up with counters for it. It's effective, but really difficult and pride-staining."
"I'll take my chances." Kazuto said, completely unbothered as he sent JaymesTheFirst an invite to his fireteam.
"Don't say I didn't warn you." Ian took a look around the room, taking in the other aspects of it, prime among them, the bluish grey helmet sitting on the shelf beside Kazuto's setup. After he stood up, Ian looked at it and saw the letters NVG on the forehead cover with the words NerveGear under them.
"You have a NerveGear? That's great! I still have to get my hands on one, though."
"Um, yeah, I got it as soon as I could." Kazuto said before he saw a red and black ship enter orbit beside his black one. Grabbing a headset, the raven-haired boy plugged it into his PC and turned on the voice chat. "Hey, Jaymes."
After a second, Kazuto started speaking again, asking the other player how his day was. As they exchanged pleasantries, Kazuto brought up the events of the last thirty minutes, and Ian's stomach churned for some reason.
"Oy, Ian." Kazuto said, handing Ian his headset. "Jaymes wants to talk to you."
Ian took the headset with slightly shaking hands and slid it onto his head, careful to not damage it. Apparently, Ian's head was as big as Kazuto's because the headset didn't require adjustments.
"Um, hello?" he asked hesitantly.
"Oh, hi, stranger. I was beginning to think that you left the room." the boy on the other side said in English. His voice was deeper and reflected a kind of stoic badassery.
English?! Ian thought. Why did I just get addressed in English?
"Um, hello." he replied in English. "I'm sorry, but this was kind of abrupt, you know, Kaz-- I mean Kirito, gave this to me all of a sudden, and you addressed me in English, so I'm a bit confused."
The other boy chuckled. "Yeah, I'm part American, so there you go."
"Go figure. I've been stateside my whole life, up until a week ago, mind you. What do I call you?"
"Jaymes will do. That's what my name in SAO will be."
"Okay, Jaymes." Ian said. "You want to talk to Kirito again?"
"Not yet." Jaymes replied. "I want to hear how you ended up in the land of the rising sun."
"Um, okay, but call me Possum for now." Ian said, not exactly in a mood to share information, but just what brought him to Japan should be fine, right. "Anyways, it all started when..."
Kazuto Kirigaya
Kazuto watched as Ian slowly socialized with Jaymes, a mix of multiple emotions in his heart. First and foremost was amusement, as he found Ian struggling to speak clearly to be funny. The next one, however, was envy. When Ian found himself talking more confidently, he was quickly finding comfort in Jaymes. It seemed as though he was finding solace in the boy, just like he did. If there was anything he was bad at, Kazuto was horrible at talking to people.
But he somehow got along with Ian just fine, and the latter was now in his room, talking to his only gaming friend. Maybe it was because the boy was like him, alone, without friends to keep him company. As he thought about this, another painful memory crept into his mind...
Kazuto sat on his bed, curled up into a ball and shaking from the encounter he just went through. His aunt and uncle weren't even angry with him for learning the truth, but instead, they were perfectly calm and possibly indifferent, as though they didn't seem to care if Kazuto's world just shattered before him.
They simply knew that he would poke around and find the truth, but they did nothing to prevent it, nor did they tell him the truth before he found it himself. And once he brought up Suguha, they had simply ignored him and went on about what they had wanted to tell him.
He didn't remember the words they said, but they were hollow, without any truth in them, he felt.
"Why did this have to happen, why did this have to happen, why did this have to happen..." he kept murmuring, tears leaking out of his eyed as he repeated those words.
As far as he knew, Kazuto couldn't trust Suguha anymore, or more accurately, anyone. Everyone he encountered seemed to enjoy lying to him, and that hurt. Thanks to his newfound lack of trust in anyone, Kazuto could no longer face Suguha, and the only way he could stay out of her life was to minimize contact with her as much as possible, so he had no choice but to quit taking kendo classes with her.
It wasn't like he didn't enjoy kendo, even though he was forced into it, but he would end up getting angry at Suguha for lying to him and ruin his relationship with her even further than it already was.
"I don't care if Grandpa beats me for it, but I'm quitting kendo. I can't trust anyone anymore, and if I stayed that way, then I'd end up getting lied to again." the boy said solemnly, ceasing his crying and sitting up. He looked at his computer, the same tool he used to find the truth, and sighed.
"Is the online world really a solution?" the boy asked himself. He had no idea what to do, but he had to do something, and the online world seemed to be the way.
Yawning, the boy laid down on his bed, falling asleep hours later...
"Um, Kirito?" Jaymes asked, concerned.
Kazuto jolted to his senses to find his headset back on his head; Ian must have placed it on his head while he was reminiscing.
"Yeah, Jaymes?" he said, ridding his head of the flashback that happened.
"Um, Possum said he saw you shaking and stuff, so he gave me to you and went to go get water for you."
Kazuto froze in place for a second. Ian saw him shaking and sweating? Did he hear him muttering, too?
"That's nice to know."
"Anyways, you want to do anything?" Jaymes asked.
"Um, not right now. When Possum returns, I want him to duel against you in a private match so I can see how he plays."
The door to his room opened and a brown-haired boy walked in, a cup of water and a damp rag in his hands. Shutting the door behind him, he sat down and offered the raven-haired boy the cup with a small smile.
"Here you go." he said, his eyes reflecting something he couldn't place. "I saw you acting like you had a panic attack or something, so I got some water and a warm rag for your face."
Kazuto took the cup, drinking some water before Ian attacked his sweaty face with the rag, wiping the sweat from his face and warming him up a little.
"I'm worried about you, Kazuto. I really am." Ian said. "It's pretty clear that you need help, but you can't get it if you shut your family out of your life so much."
There was sincere concern in his eyes, and his words hit a certain part of him that he didn't want to be hit. Yes, he needed to stop shutting his family out, but that was a little hard when his family didn't care about him.
"I don't want to talk about my family, Ian." he told the American. "Sorry, but that's a touchy subject."
"That's fine." was the reply given. "I'm just concerned. You and Suguha are among the first friends I've ever had, and I appreciate you two for deciding to be around me. I'm not easily approachable, and I'm very honest, so people who actually stick with me, even if I end up telling them something that contradicts their beliefs, are rare to come by. In fact, I call those people 'persons,' because they have common sense and have a good moral alignment."
Kazuto felt himself smiling a little, confused as to what he should do. Was he actually beginning to trust someone he only met an hour ago, even though he attacked him on sight?
"Did Jaymes fill you in on anything?" Ian asked after a moment of silence.
"Yeah. I also told him that I wanted you to duel him so I could see how you played."
"Oh, really? Is he okay with that?"
"I'm fine with it, Possum." Jaymes said through the mic. "So, you in?"
Ian sighed, making sure that Kazuto was fine, and then he said, "I'm in, Jaymes. Show me what you got."
Well... that chapter sure turned out to be interesting. When I tried to write about pre-SAO Kazuto, I ended up OOC'ing him a lot and writing him as a broken boy who has lost the knowledge of what trust and compassion is like. Also, for anyone who wants to, I've started a Discord server specifically for the fanfictions I've written. My Discord profile is Mr. Lonely#6306 and for any Xbox players out there who want to play with me, my gamertag is Be an 1an as well.
Anyways, next chapter, Jaymes gets to have a chapter mostly to himself, and then the story will jump ahead to a month later. Thank you for reading Origin Story, and thank you for following me. Until next time, then.
Edit: My Discord profile has been disabled, so only my Xbox profile's available. No mic, though.