The Survival Logs || Sword Art Online Fanfic

PK Pandemonia Arc: Chapter 85 - The 'Why?' of PK

My hand gently left my spare katana's handle, as I breathed a sigh of relief.

"Anyway, please have a seat," Tori offered. "I do regret having forgotten to add chairs to the cells, so I'll apologize for that lapse of hospitality."

What a weird thing to say, considering that prisons don't need chairs, but I went over to my straw pile and scooped up as many straw as I could with my arms.

"It's alright," I said. "I'll make one."

Moulding the straw into something like a stool didn't take long anyway. In fact, it was that fast because of how straw was so easy to handle in this world.

Once the stool was done, I plopped myself onto it, and found myself sitting eye-to-eye with the Council leader, her face being seen between a pair of metal bars.

The easy parts to do were over. Now came the hard ones.

"What happened to them?" I asked in a hassle.

Tori leaned back onto her chair. "First off, would you like to listen to how hard I tried to keep them from coming here?"

I felt a slight urge to reach for my katana again. This woman sure doesn't hold back on her cockiness.

"No."

"Fantastic! Well, damn, they almost found the prison, I'll give that to them. I had to drag my sleeping ass out just to meet and.....um.....explain to them that the prison is out of bounds! The angry one was especially a pain in the ass!"

"The angry one?"

"I liked her though. She was the easiest to deal with. Played her good, I did."

It was easy to know which one she was talking about. There wasn't anyone else who'd recklessly throw herself into the fray just to save her comrades.

Without admitting that I'd gladly listen to her ranting instead, I leaned a little closely to the metal bars. "And what about the others?"

"They aren't even worth playing with. Such a shame," Tori's ranting kept going. "You've got the pacifist who's ruining my fun with the angry one, and the one who's the Vanguard.....well.....he's really as stubborn as they say."

It was like a switch had clicked within me, as my eyes lit up at the mention of Zena. "Is it about his spear? I mean, I just don't get it either! I've been nagging at him for that!"

"I know, right?" Tori leaned closer to the metal bars. "Maybe I should pester him about it too!"

"How about we force him to do it together?" I leaned closer.

"You got a deal! Threatening him sounds fun!" Tori stretched her hand past the metal bars with an excited smile.

I took it in reflex, and even shook on it, before realising that I had just gotten along with my captor.

"Ah....."

As I slowly slipped my hand away from Tori's, she kept her smile on her face, as she leaned back on her chair to relax.

"You know, if you weren't in this much trouble, I could have invited you into the Council."

I adjusted the pretty uneven seat of my straw stool. "Huh. You must be kidding."

"Katralis's a big city to manage," Tori didn't seem to mind my dry rejection to her proposal. "So the Council's always been short-handed. But, I've always been finding new people to join our cause."

She turned to me, and her smile bent into a slight frown. "The 'right' people, that is."

"Must be hard finding the right people," I commented sarcastically. "Seems to me that not every orange player can make the cut."