“It’s not fair how good you are at English,” Koharu says as she closes the virtual window possessing her English homework out the way, cutting her eyes at the American in the corner of her AR screen created by the Augma. She sighs and leans back on the large pink bean bag used as a backrest while sitting at the floor table. She faces the other occupant of the table, her younger brother Suko watching television while eating an afternoon snack, his homework long completed with the aid of his sister and her friend. “But thanks for helping both of us. I know you’re busy back in Kyoto.”
“Not really. I mean, I do my homework with you, so that’s taken care of. Everything else is just...me sitting here, waiting for dad to wake up.”
Koharu holds her legs to her torso and makes a gloomy face. “I know I told you to go and all, but I miss you. And to think we finally started dating.”
“Yeah, this is your doing, Ko.”
“Agreeing with me will make me unhappy.”
“Anyway, I miss you guys too. Sorry I haven’t been online or anything. But hey, at least the Augma has this video chat feature, and we’ve made full use of it. It was nice to see Kazuto, Asuna, Alice, Keiko, and Rika with you last night. I got to talk with Kotone and Nijika too… Oh, speaking of which, Nijika wanted me to ask you something. Something about playing the piano or something for a song she’s working on.”
Koharu widens her eyes and stands up, heading to her bedroom. “Playing the piano? I… I haven’t done that in years. I mean, I did have the music hobby skill in SAO, but I haven’t touched a piano in a long time. I haven’t even opened the keyboard my mother bought for me.”
“You should talk to her, give it a try. I’ve seen the awards you got as a kid. You were great. I don’t see why you put piano off for gymnastics, though. Couldn’t you do both?”
“I decided to do just one, so I chose gymnastics. But physically, I’m so out of practice that it’d be hard to pick it up again… I have thought about picking up music again.”
“Here’s your opportunity. Just think on it.”
“Okay.”
“So, what’s the deal with SA semicolon O? Has anything on the new floor come up?”
“No, nothing has...wait, did you just say the whole abbreviation out loud?” Koharu closes her eyes in second-hand shame and positions the window of Joshua to face away from her as she enters her closet and begins to take off her school uniform.
“Yes, I did… Ko, what are you doing? Why am I looking at a wall?”
“I’m getting undressed. Have I ever gotten undressed with you looking at me?”
Joshua sighs and closes his eyes. “But around me was always okay? What made you think I never looked?”
“I knew you did. It would be stupid to think otherwise since we shared rooms and a bed. But I trusted you’d never do anything, although…” Koharu glances at the mirror, staring at her mostly nude figure with only her white underwear on. Her curvature from her younger, pre-SAO form has remained; she grew a bit in the breast department but still dwarfed by Asuna, Rika, Suguha, and damned Strea.
Until SAO, she never really thought about her body image beyond an athlete’s mindset, but after sharing a bath with Asuna the first night after they met and seeing how gorgeous she was, Koharu started to think of herself as a girl. That, along with her increasing feelings towards Jaymes and what she believed to be his general ignorance of Koharu as a girl, shook her mind like a carbonated soda in a plastic bottle, bursting the moment when Jaymes confessed his feelings. “Maybe not in the beginning, but eventually, after you confessed, I wished you did.”
She hears him choke on a drink or something that causes him to cough harshly. “What? You… I mean… Huh? Jeez, Ko, you can’t say that now. Do you know how hard it was not to do something like that?”
“I’m happy you resisted, but after hearing all about Asuna and Kirito, I wish we didn’t.”
“Liz said the same thing once. Oh, sorry! I didn’t mean to mention that.”
Koharu figures there will be times this would happen. While everyone knows the two are dating now, Koharu hasn’t talked much about Joshua around Rika or anyone this past week. She limits it to Asuna and Kazuto since she confides in them more than anyone else besides her partner, but it’s been hard to be around Joshua’s ex-girlfriend now that Koharu’s the current. Yet, knowing that, she can’t help but feel some jealousy when hearing him speak of the other girl. Throwing on a shirt and shorts, she returns Joshua’s gaze to her while she pouts and walks to her bed. “Hmmph.”
“Ko? Koharu?”
“You know, you've been with many girls recently. Why don’t we talk about that?”
“Huh? There’s only been you and Liz… And I can’t tell you what I don’t remember of the Underworld. Well...I can find out, but I don’t know if I want to.”
Koharu hears the sound of regret drip from his voice, though she wonders what the source is. From what he has told her, he was the emperor of the Dark Territory. For some reason, she has lingering memories of her own, but not from the war she fought with him, but sometime after. She didn’t stay behind like Kazuto, Joshua, and Asuna did, so she shouldn’t have memories of storming a dark castle, seeing a young, purple-haired girl being held by a man in black armor by her neck, and fighting against said man with Joshua. She hazily recalls a girl with red hair and the bluest of eyes, a dark blonde girl with the same eyes as Koharu, and another with piercing red eyes and white hair fighting against them. These people Koharu have no vivid memories of meeting, yet they cannot be fake. Foggy as the picture is, she knows she met with Kazuto and Asuna, and the four of them fought against a powerful swordsman.
“Koharu.”
“Huh?”
“You okay? You spaced out for a moment.”
“Oh, um, yeah, I’m okay… Hey, if you ever do want to find out what happened in the Underworld, how could you?”
“My Fluctlight from those two hundred years remains with Rath. Dr. Rinko said I can check it out anytime I want.”
“I see. When you do, can I come with you? We should bring Asuna and Kazuto too.”
“I don’t see why not. Maybe after we’re done with Premiere and we have a break from school.”
Koharu nods then looks away from Joshua as a yellow mail icon pops up. It’s from Yui from within Sword Art: Origin. “Hey, looks like they found some information. I’m going to go ahead and dive in.”
“Yeah? Tell everyone I say good luck, and I’m counting on them. But if something comes up, don’t hesitate to ask me. I may not be able to come and help, but I can answer messages.”
Koharu smiles and nods. “I won’t. When we’re done, I’ll call you tonight, okay? I’ll do my best online with Premiere.”
“I have no doubts about it. You’re much stronger than when we met, and if you gave PoH the business, I doubt whatever comes next will be trouble. I’ll have to reward you when I get back.”
“Really? Then for our first date, there’s this cake I want to try. Very expensive, but that’s nothing for you, right? Oh, and it’ll be a double date, so Asuna will be there. And before you debate, it’s already decided, hehe.”
“...Why am I paying for Asuna?”
“Kazuto says you owe him for a certain comment a while back, something about Asuna back on the Ocean Turtle.”
“...Me and my pervy mouth, fine.”
xxxxxxx
Koharu’s SA:O avatar loads into the inn room she rents and makes her way out and down the stairs to the lobby. There, Kirito, Asuna, and everyone is present. “Hey, everyone, sorry I’m late.”
Klein waves it off with a great smile. “Oh, it’s okay! If I had a cute boyfriend like Jaymes around and so far away, I’d want to spend every moment I could talk with him virtually.”
Kirito groans and slaps Klein on the back of his head. “One, you have a girlfriend. Two, you’re embarrassing her. Three...you’re embarrassing yourself.”
“Ironic coming from you, Mister Girl-Magnet.”
As the men trade insults, Koharu walks over to Asuna and Sinon, sitting at their table. “So the new area has been located?”
“Discovered yesterday just after we logged off,” Asuna informs.
“Now it’s crawling with players.”
“Can you blame them? Who wouldn’t want to explore a brand new area? And with Aincrad, you never knew what was next until you got there!”
“You’re very excited, Koharu,” Sinon notes. “I thought Kirito was the one who couldn’t keep his excitement in check when exploring new places, but I think he’s been topped.”
“I am, but the more important this is that Tia is probably running around that area right now.”
“She said she had somewhere to go,” Kirito says from the post he leans against, “and the only way to that place must be through the new area.”
“We have to find her and figure out what’s going on.”
“Whatever it is, it’s affecting Premiere too. It’s personal now.”
“Who knows what will happen to them if we don't do something.”
“I’m still in shock over the fact that the masked NPC was actually Tia.”
“They looked totally different, didn’t they? The masked NPC looked a lot bigger than Tia.”
“How could we have known? She had a mask on, for crying out loud! We couldn’t see her face. Kirito, how did you and Jaymes suspect it?”
Kirito shrugs in response to Klein’s question. “We just took a guess. It wasn’t until after Premiere’s first headache that we thought about it, but even then, it still shocked us.”
“That’s the part I don’t get. Why hide her identity?”
“Sorry we’re late!” Everyone turns to Lisbeth and Agil as they enter the inn. “It took Agil and me a while to get the scoop on that new area.”
“We made sure we got the whole story on how to get there. Is everybody ready?”
“Yep, we’re all set!”
“Let’s get going!”
“Are you okay, Premiere? Let us know the moment you feel anything strange.”
“Understood.”
As everyone gets to their feet and prepares to head out Yui waves farewell. “Good luck, everyone! Take good care of yourself, Premiere!”
“Thank you very much. I will.”
xxxxxxxx
“So, long story short, a whole bunch of unexplored areas have been discovered under the Stalvatos Ruins.”“Once again, we have to climb down from The Reimanhills to get to them, I hear.”
Now that Koharu thinks about it, it makes sense that the Vulcanus Citadel and the new floor are heading down from the Stalvatos Ruins, as there’s no “ceiling” that makes up the sky around them. This is the sky of Ainground, which makes the ruins, to some degree, the top floor. With this Aincrad incomplete and no labyrinths to advance to the next floor up or down, these weird pathways are the only way to descend.
This is the first time she’s heading to a brand new floor of Aincrad, any version of it, without Jaymes around. Is this how he felt when he set foot on the fifty-sixth floor over two years ago, a weird sense that something was missing, along with the other emotions he had at the time? She bets so...but he has his own matters to attend to, and she has hers.
“She said she’s going to where her ‘destiny’ awaits so she can ‘put an end to the madness,’ right? What the heck does that even mean?”
“It could be she feels trapped by this ‘destiny,’ of hers,” Asuna answers Sinon. “Maybe she’s unhappy with the choices she has?”
“Well, we won’t know for sure until we talk to Tia herself.”
“Meeting all of you opened up a world of possible destinies for me,” Premiere says. “I want Tia to have the same opportunities as I do.”
“I know. That’s why we’re trying so hard to find her.”
“Yes.”
From what Koharu’s been told by Jaymes, Premiere and Tia were originally NPCs with no settings, but like every NPC in this world, they were still affected by player interaction. Premiere lucked out by being with Jaymes, Kirito, Asuna, and their friends; Tia had no one until she met Genesis. Whatever resentment she had towards players and the world was amplified by him that she initiated the ritual to construct Aincrad.
Having played the Elf War Quest with Kirito, Asuna, and Jaymes on the original Aincrad, Koharu knows the tale of how Aincrad was formed; six keys, a tree, two priestesses, all those components became the tale that everyone played through earlier in the year. And because SA:O was operated by the exact version of the Cardinal System the original was, they fell right into the system’s hands. Only by defeating Tia did they halt Cardinal’s primary instruction, to form Aincrad and destroy the world upon its completion, just as Akihiko Kayaba instructed for SAO upon his defeat as the final boss.
“Okay, are we all ready to search this new area for Tia?” Koharu nods along to answer Kirito and follows him towards the new area...
xxxxxxxx
...straight into the cold. Oh, she’s jealous of her partner now. Of course he’d miss out on this. Her excitement is frozen as she searches her inventory for warmer clothing, but of course, why would she have anything of that sort? Until now, there’s never been a cold environment.
“Great, snow and ice. Seems like a wonderful place,” Kirito spits out with sarcasm as he inspects the snowy, mountainous area they find themselves in.
“Hey, look over there. The map opens up a bit.”
“Ooh, I bet the view will be great.”
“Yeah, let’s go see!” As most of the group rushes out to see the view, Koharu grumbles to herself and lags behind. She eventually makes it, just in time to hear Premiere’s impressions of the field before them.
“This is...white. It appears to be one vast field of white.
Silica giggles. “Well, I think it’s beautiful!”
“It is, Silica, but we have to be careful,” Asuna warns. “Who knows what’s hiding under all that snow.”
“Yeah, it’ll be impossible to spot anything in white out in that tundra.”
Kirito looks at Premiere and places a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry, Premiere. We will find Tia.”
“Yes, we will.”
“Right, let’s explore this area and look for Tia!” As everyone steps away from the cliff, Koharu looks over the area for a moment longer. She doesn’t realize it until a hand touches her shoulder. “Coming, Ko?”
“Oh, sorry, Kirito.”
“You’re cold, and you miss him, huh?”
She sighs and turns away from the cliff. “Yes, I miss him. Yes, it’s cold. But what I don’t miss is what Jaymes would say if I complained about it. ‘Well, damn Koharu, I can’t control the weather’ with his stupid sarcasm… Let’s go before I get sentimental and lose focus…Tia, here we come.”