Floor 25 - Epilogue 2 - In Death, As In Life

It had been a strange week, Koharu had decided. After the mess that had been the 25th Floor Boss, the aptly named Dream Reaper, she'd known that things wouldn't return to normal immediately.

Jet was still laid up in bed, having been almost burnt to a crisp by the monster, only saved by what he described as divine intervention (a thought that terrified her especially – Jet wasn't religious, to her knowledge, and so, even him describing something as "divine intervention" ... and meaning it, was an especially chilling prospect.), whilst the final death toll of the boss battle was counted at 26, all being told.

It wasn't hard to find someone on the frontline who'd lost a friend in that battle, and the mood surrounding it was equally sober. Of the frontline guilds, the ALS had been annihilated – only Kibaou and Liten had survived the battle, out of a group of 24 players – whilst the DKB and HOA suffered considerably lower losses; something that she struggled to explain how that had come to be.

Although Diavel had survived the fight, he was... distant, to put it mildly. The man who'd once rallied the players on the First Floor was reduced to aimlessly wandering, and performing quests well below his level, simply to occupy his time she'd reckoned. That, however, had led to Heathcliff taking over the HOA, and that was something she really didn't know how to feel about.

On one hand, a decisive leader was absolutely needed now, and as much fondness as she'd had for Diavel, he really wasn't that now.

On the other hand, he'd tried to have Seven executed, and may possibly have contributed heavily to the rift formed between the clearing group, that allowed the Dream Reaper to sneak in amongst them and cause the untold carnage it did.

Then there was their own friend group – they hadn't exactly survived unscathed either.

Strea and Mito were amongst the deceased too, and what had concerned her most was how the two people who absolutely should've been most broken by this news; Jet and Asuna, were handling it.

Jet, by throwing himself into every task he could find, regardless of whether he knew what he was doing, and Asuna, whose answer for every question asked on the subject was that she was fine, and it didn't matter.

It also hadn't helped that since the battle, Kirito had – to borrow a term from Jet – done a runner too, leaving Asuna with them.

She would be having words with the "Black Swordsman" when she next saw him, and not many of them polite, she reckoned. Immediately beforehand, there'd been a discussion between Heathcliff and Asuna about her joining the HOA, though she'd been hesitant on the topic.

It had only been after she'd had chance to discuss it with herself and Rain that she'd apparently made up her mind, and her answer was a firm no. In her own words, she wanted nothing to do with an organisation that tried to use capital punishment on a child, before she'd turned to Kirito to continue to the next floor.

She wasn't fully privy to what had been said, other than what she was told later, but she could piece together what had happened. Kirito had told her just how impressive she was, having gone from death's door when he'd found her, to the rising star of the clearers; a survivor of the battle that took so many lives, and so much more than she thought of herself as...

Which was apparently why he couldn't stick with her anymore – he viewed himself as a dead weight to her, and that there were places where she would feel as if she belonged somewhere. However, he hadn't told her exactly where that place that she belonged was, although she was pretty sure he meant the Concord by that.

Anyway, the short of that was to say that the Concord was now becoming less of a party, and more of a small guild, having grown to eight members – herself, Jet, Rain, Philia, Seven, Asuna and Kizmel, who'd gained a new sense of self-awareness (much to everyone's surprise, when she'd revealed that over dinner, and a conversation that led to a lot of cleaning up of spit takes afterwards...).

Unfortunately, that growth had also been met by the fact that clearing activities were positively glacial since the battle. Ever since that battle, no guild had sent any parties out on specifically clearing related activities, but rather training ones, to get the newer members up to the standards needed to fight on the frontlines...

This had meant that they'd all had rather more spare time on their hands than any of them would have preferred, and in order to prevent Jet and Sanya from destroying each other in a duel to see which of them was the superior sword fighter, she'd been talking with Klein about having some kind of memorial service for everyone they'd lost – a wake, as Jet put it.

It hadn't taken her long to notice that Jet was far from enthusiastic about the idea but had settled on attending anyway. He'd told her a bit about what to expect from a wake; that it was a party usually held after a funeral, and in theory anyway, was supposed to celebrate the person who'd gone, a way of celebrating their life, rather than mourning their passing.

Although, the way he'd explained it, she wasn't convinced that it wasn't just an excuse to celebrate what Jet had claimed was his sister's favourite pastime... drinking.

What she hadn't expected was for him to be relatively upbeat throughout much of the evening, even laughing and joking along with the guys as they drank to their fallen comrade/lover/family's memory and told sometimes jokey stories about them.

In other circumstances, she might have said it was in slightly poor taste. It was an unwritten rule never to speak ill of the dead, in her mind anyway.

In this circumstance, she had no doubt it was what Strea would have wanted.

Even the toast had been delivered with the usual lack of tact that the woman possessed. "To Strea! The biggest pain in the arse I ever knew!" They'd shouted, and she wondered whether Jet was hideously drunk, or trying his hardest to hide everything... and doing a really good job of it.

That atmosphere had changed near the end of the night when Klein had taken Jet aside and handed him something. From her location in the bar, she couldn't make out exactly what it was, other than it was blue and shiny - a record crystal, perhaps?

Whatever it was, Jet hadn't even waited for her to finish her drink before he left...

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Returning to the inn room, Jet had practically locked himself in the bathroom, as he thought about what had been said – Strea had left him something, a record crystal.

A final message to him. The last time he'd hear his sister's voice.

It was a strange thought to think, that of all the people she'd pissed off; powerful people with the resources to have someone "disappear" in mysterious circumstances, evil people with the motive to do the same, or those who simply wished to send a message to anyone who dared to mock them... it had been none of those that took her life, but rather a video game console.

He supposed it was at least quick. Any of the other bastards mentioned certainly wouldn't have been.

"Jet? Are you..." Koharu asked through the door. He cursed that she could read him like a book, and that sudden of a change in attitude was certainly unusual for him, even if she wasn't as perceptive as she was.

"I'm fine!" He snapped back, before holding his head in his hands in shame. It wasn't Koharu's fault for anything; she didn't deserve his ire. Sadly, keeping his emotions in check was something he'd always struggled with...

"Ok, I'll be in bed if you need me..."

Whatever was on that crystal, it wasn't going anywhere he supposed. Perhaps a good night's sleep might help him calm down somewhat...

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Despite his thoughts of sleep, it hadn't exactly come to him as easily as he'd have liked – in fact, he'd probably been in bed for a good

Recovering from the blinding light, Jet rubbed the base of his palms against his eyes to clear them of... whatever was in them.

What he hadn't expected though, was to see sand on his palms.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!" His denial became increasingly frantic. "We defeated you!" He cried out, only to be confronted by a child – one that he recognised.

The child was probably around twelve or thirteen and had a mop of brown hair atop their head, with bluish starter armour equipped. A moment of realisation became one of horror as he realised what was about to happen...

"I'm sorry... I really am!"

"You let me die." The boy stated coldly, with no discernible emotion to his voice. "You will let everyone die. You know that, and yet you persist to call yourself a hero?"

"Oh, he's no hero. Just deluding himself." Another familiar voice told him – Strea. The avatar of his sister, with an unsettlingly realistic wound to her chest from where the Dream Reaper had impaled her.

Not that he'd been present for that. This was all his mind making up the image of what had happened from everyone else's testimony...

He hated his mind right now.

"Rain told me what happened – you did as you always do! You rushed on ahead and didn't stop to think!" Something inside his mind snapped, and the floodgates that had been holding everything back for the past week broke apart, his emotions flooding through like a tsunami in a valley. "And look where that got you... dead." Despite the tears streaming down his face, there was an anger there he'd never really faced properly – an anger born completely of worry, and now grief. An anger formed of sadness now, at the prospect of never seeing her again other than in his memories.

Maybe they hadn't seen eye to eye on most things, but she'd been right about one thing way back when – she was still his sister, despite what he'd said then.

Much to his surprise, the image of his sister didn't snap back; she didn't yell, she didn't really say anything, but walked towards him instead... and pulled him into a hug, as her form changed back to the sister he'd grown up with. Not Strea, the purple haired pain in the arse he could at least pretend he wasn't related to sometimes, but Gabby, the girl who'd taught him a lot during his formative years (granted, she'd also beaten him up a few times too, but he'd gotten his own back for those occasions... teaspoons and tablespoons were easily "mixed up".)

"I forgive you."

It was almost cruel in a sense, that his mind would decide those were the first thing she'd say to him in the visage he grew up with.

Words he'd never heard his sister tell him, and never would now...

"I'm sorry I ever said that. You weren't-" He muttered against her shoulder, barely containing the tears in his eyes.

"We all say stupid things, right?" Gabby smiled back at him, sans the lethal wound that Strea had obtained. "Just... don't be me, right?" She broke away from their hug, taking his hands in hers. "Don't forget what I taught you – being merciful doesn't mean being kind, right."

"Heh, when did you become my conscience?"

"I'm serious, Michael. I don't want to see you again, right?" He looked at her with a sense of sadness. She was right, after all – seeing her again would mean he was dead too, and he didn't really want that either. Not anymore, anyway. "Especially not because you let some monster go, out of a misplaced sense of heroism. I made my choices, and... maybe, they weren't the right ones, but I stand by nearly all of them. I lived my life, even if it was short, so remember this... No more moping, mister. Brave heart, right!" She ordered, as she faded away from existence.

"Brave heart." He repeated, before realising he was alone in the void. The young boy had disappeared, probably some time ago and he'd not noticed, and so had Gabby, leaving him to wander the... whatever this was, alone.

He couldn't say how long he'd wandered the void aimlessly, but it was long enough that seeing another figure was both a blessing and a curse.

A blessing to know he wasn't alone in here.

A curse because he recognised the chainmail hood drooping slightly below the poncho the figure wore – Morte.

Morte stood there, silently – something Jet recognised as completely out of character for the bastard – before he turned to face him. The monster's face had always been obscured by that hood of his, so Jet had never really seen his face in full, a fact his mind clearly recognised as the upper part of his face was hidden by shadows, only his eyes clear in the void.

Those eyes though, were an awful blood red, piercing through the shadows that obscured them, before the unobscured part of his face gave a grin that could only be described as satanic. A smile that contorted what could be seen of the man's face to an absurd degree and froze him in horror.

"You're next." The contorted figure told him, before it lunged at him...

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"Gah!" He snapped bolt upright, soaked in sweat and clutching at the duvet covers as if they were going to fly off in a hurricane... "What the hell even was that..." He muttered, whilst Koharu rolled over to face him.

"Jet?"

"I'm... I think I need some air."

"You want to go on your own, or..." He said nothing, his panting telling her his answer as clearly as any words would. "I'll get dressed." She smiled at him as she got out of bed.

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Having got dressed, they'd left the inn for nowhere in particular – anywhere quiet... which at 01:24 in the morning was, well, anywhere.

The usually bustling main street on Emstrey was still covered in debris from their destruction of the Dream Catcher, though the debris had been mostly cleared, and in the day, the market had even started to return.

At 1am, however? The main street was completely dead, with not even the birds or other wildlife making a sound. All that could be heard was a gentle breeze, and their footsteps on the cobbles.

Eventually, they'd found the town's arboretum; a lake that flowed off from the river that had a park built around it, and they settled on a grass bank that was apparently used by the fishermen of the area. At this time of night, not even the most dedicated of fishermen were out, so they had the area to themselves.

As he looked out into the crystal-clear water of the arboretum, she noticed something new in his eyes - she couldn't say exactly what, but what was there wasn't the confidence she'd seen him display when trying to cheer her up, nor was it the anger he'd shown in standing up to the Dream Reaper; a rage that should've stopped an army in its tracks.

No, she did know what it was, because she'd lived it.

That was grief.

It was the feeling that nothing would ever be the same again, that the world had collapsed around you, and you stood there, now alone, surrounded by a city of emotional rubble. The feeling that no one truly understood, despite what a fancy degree might have said, not until they lived it... and they wished they didn't.

It was a pain that ranged from being stabbed with a blunt and rusty knife, to a knitting needle. A pain that never truly disappeared, in her experience.

It was said that time healed all wounds. She wasn't quite sure she believed that, not least because she still had days when she found herself emotional over the tiniest thing that reminded her of her. The Sandman had been right on one thing; she would never forget that wonderful woman that she'd had the privilege to call ''mom''.

Sparing her thoughts for her boyfriend, she looked towards him. He continued to stare out into the water, as if he were expecting the waters to suddenly ripple. It hurt her more than she'd ever thought it would to see him like this - moping around, only barely putting the bare minimum into things he'd otherwise have given 110% of his energy towards and only just about keeping the dam of emotions from bursting.

In happier times, he'd joked that she could read him like he was a book, and he wasn't wrong - she was, at least according to her school friends, almost exceptionally empathetic. She made sure she was there if anyone needed it, and even if all she could offer was a shoulder to cry on, then that was still something to her.

''It's strange...'' He spoke so softly she only barely heard him above the faint rustle of the trees. ''I had my skin seared off, and limbs taken apart only this week, and somehow, this hurts so much more than that ever did. At least I knew I'd die from that." He added sadly. "Or I thought I did, anyway."

''Grief always does.'' She answered, trying not to patronise him. He needed his girlfriend now, not someone psychoanalysing him. ''But everyone grieves differently. I'm just thankful you didn't lock yourself in our room and pretend the world doesn't exist.''

She spoke from experience there - that was far worse for your mental health; at a point when that really didn't need to be worse than it no doubt already was. It certainly had been for hers, to the point she still struggled to stay in her bedroom sometimes in the outside world.

''Be still, one day you'll leave...'' Jet hummed quietly, and she noticed tears starting to form in his eyes. Whilst she couldn't say she knew the song he was humming (she rarely did, come to think of it), she knew it clearly had some kind of significant meaning behind it.

''I won't ever leave. I promise you that.'' She placed her hand over his, and watched as he closed his eyes and his lips quivered.

''Don't break character, you've got a lot of heart...'' He continued, though his voice began to waiver.

She looked at him, at the face that told her just how much he'd been holding in over the past few days. ''I never fell in love with the character you play, I fell in love with you. The geeky, slightly over enthusiastic, socially awkward, wise cracking boy behind that persona of a hero. The boy who'd throw down everything to help people, and... the boy that I know's hurting right now, because he lost his sister, because he lived, and others didn't. You don't have to pretend to be the Knight of the Wind, or Jet, around me, you know?''

"I... don't know if I can do this." He whispered, wiping his hand over his eyes to try and remove the welling tears before almost pulling at his face as he sighed. "Not anymore. People died because of a bad call I made, Koharu. Nothing is ever gonna change that, those people are dead..."

The Sandman had shown her one thing in particular, something it knew would do the most damage emotionally to her: it had shown her the wreck of her family's car, probably only minutes after it had happened, and then had the audacity to pretend to be her mom.

"I never told you about my mom, did I?" She asked, and he simply shook his head. "I don't know where to begin, I've never actually told anyone before, not really. I lost my mom when I was younger. There was a car wreck, and... well, only me and my dad got out of it."

"I never knew..."

"I never wanted to face it. Every time I think about her, I have to think of the happy times I spent with her; teaching me to play the piano, gymnastics practice, my first school report even..." As she said it, she could almost picture her mom stood behind her, helping her position her hands on the keys of the piano they had at home.

"That was a happy thing for you? I was always called a disruptive influence..." He joked, though she could tell his heart clearly wasn't in it, and she let out a small giggle at it.

"That does sound like you, you know! But no, she was so proud of me, we even got a takeaway!" She carried on. "I just... I keep thinking about the last moments with her, laughing and watching her smiling, then..." She tensed up, her hand grasping his even tighter than she'd ever done before as she relived those last moments in her mind.

The tyres squealing before the car veered sharply into the ditch beside the road.

The cracking noises before the world spun around her.

The calm and eerie silence when the world stopped spinning around her.

"Then everything changed." The scene she pictured was probably not even what it had been; it certainly hadn't been in sepia tones, she knew that much, but she'd read somewhere that one of the ways the mind coped with remembering traumatic images was to drain them of colour. "I guess I was always a mommy's girl, but my dad became... distant, after she passed away. He would leave me out of the loop, he'd go and do things and not bother to tell me where he was going, and it was like I didn't exist when he wasn't looking at me."

She decided to leave out the times he'd left her for days on end whilst he disappeared on some vacation with his newest girlfriend, because she'd wanted to be happy for them, so desperately, even though she knew they couldn't care less about her.

She decided to leave out the times he'd made snide comments about everything she did, and she'd took it in stride, pretending it didn't destroy her inside to know that her own father felt she was a failure.

She decided to leave out the time where one of his girlfriends had told her she was the reason her mom died, and she'd locked herself in her room for an amount of time that even she didn't remember, whilst she wondered if anyone would actually notice if she wasn't there.

Jet, for all his faults, was a lot more perceptive than people gave him credit for sometimes, and she probably shouldn't have been surprised that he had read between the lines of what she'd said, and the distant look she'd probably had on her face as she talked about her dad. "I know I may be out of line here... but your dad sounds like an utter cunt." She'd heard him swear once or twice, but it took her aback to hear him outright describe someone like that! "I guess crap fathers is something we've both got in common, eh?"

"Sorry, I know I was trying to cheer you up, and I just... sort of unloaded that on you."

"What was it you told me a few weeks ago, after that ambush? A problem shared is a problem halved, right?"

"You remembered that?" The reaction she got to that question was not the one she expected; mainly as he was completely flustered and started rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand.

"It, uhh, put something into perspective for me a little bit. Ever since I was young, I always tried to solve my own problems, and when that didn't work, throw myself at everyone else's to try and feel, I dunno, less useless?" He shrugged slightly. "I think that was the first time I'd ever really opened up about stuff like that, and... it didn't feel like a cop out, it genuinely did feel like a weight off my shoulders. That nagging guilt in me, that I was keeping something like that from the person I supposedly trust unconditionally, it was almost like giving it the V, and telling it to get lost. That I wasn't going to let it rule me anymore, I suppose."

She laughed a little at that. Trust him to describe it in that way! "Jet, that thing that Klein gave you?"

"It's a Record Crystal. Strea recorded it a couple of weeks ago, said it was only to be given to me if she wasn't here anymore." He answered, pulling the item from his inventory. "I hate that she was that forward planning."

"Why?"

"Did I ever tell you what she did as a job?"

She thought for a second. "She was a journalist of some kind, you said."

"Yeah, she covered all sorts. But she also took the piss out of a lot of powerful people, and some less powerful, but also more unhinged people." Jet looked at the crystal, almost staring at it as he spoke. "I was always worried that, one day, I'd wake up to a headline that she'd been killed, or worse."

"What's worse than being murdered?" He didn't answer, but looked at her with a grim look on his face that told her everything she needed to know about where his mind had gone. "Oh."

"I guess, in a funny old way, I'm glad it was in here, and not out there." Jet laughed, though there was no mirth to it at all. "At least we were all spared that headline, I suppose."

"You can't bring yourself to open that crystal, can you?"

"I want to... but I know that it's the last time I'll ever hear her. I've never been good with endings, I guess."

"I can leave you to listen to it, if you don't feel comfortable with me-"

"No!" He shouted, catching them both off guard and causing a lone bird to fly off into the dark night sky. "Uhh sorry, I mean no." He quickly apologised. "I think I'd just keep putting it off, if you weren't here."

"What was it you said when we first left the Town of Beginnings? Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more..." She recited, adding in the rest of the quote as she placed her hand on top of his in the grass.

"You know that?" He asked, surprised.

"Shakespeare's Henry V." She answered. "Mom always loved her theatre." She smiled, and he let out a small laugh.

"I suppose there's no more putting it off then." He audibly gulped. "Once more unto the breach, eh?" He asked.

"Once more unto the breach." She smiled, and squeezed his hand tightly as he pressed the play button...

"So, if you're hearing this, Michael... I guess I'm dead." Strea snorted slightly on the recording. "How's that for an introduction? Anyway, this is... well, I guess it's my last will and testament..."