3rd Person POV
ALfheim, Neutral Territory
Central Capital, Arun
Leafa awes at the view before her. In front of her, was a beautiful city filled with bright lights and gorgeous scenery.
Kirito awes it too and looks at the sky, seeing the World Tree.
"The World Tree..." He trails and Leafa smiles.
"Yeah, no question about it. This is Arun! The center of ALheim, the biggest city in the world."
He nods, "Yeah, we're finally here."
Yui flies out Kirito's pocket and awes the place, "I've never been to a city this size."
"Me neither. The ore light looks like stardust..." Leafa compliments in awe.
Out of nowhere, a strange noise came from the city.
A voice came out of nowhere and announced, "The server will be down today, January 22, from 4:00 AM to 3:00 PM for scheduled maintenance. Players are asked to log out 10 minutes in advance."
The announce started to repeat the announcement as Leafa yawns.
"That's all for today, huh? Let's log out at an inn." She thought, looking at Kirito.
He doesn't look at her but agrees, "Sure..."
Leafa looks at him as he continues, "Well, let's find an inn. I blew all my cash so nowhere too pricey."
She puts her hands on her hips, "That's because you were showing off by giving all your money to Sakuya. You should have saved money for an inn."
He laughs awkwardly and rubs his neck.
Leafa turns to Yui with a smile, "You heard your dad. Is there a cheap inn nearby?"
Yui hums and points to a direction of an inn, "There's a super-cheap one down there."
"S-Super-cheap, huh?" Leafa smiles awkwardly.
Kirito starts walking toward the city, "Let's go."
"Ah, wait, Kirito..." Leafa says and catches up with him.
She stops midway and looks up at the World Tree.
Wind blows through her hair as she admire it.
Wondering if anything was up there.
~
Escaping the cage, (Y/n) runs on the tree path and stops. She crouches down and sees a little cave.
An opening...
She runs toward it, sneakily and sees a mechanic door. Finding a button, she presses on it and the door opens.
She looks around and all she saw was a white hallway.
~
Back in the real world, Kirito was outside washing his face.
He hears the doors sliding open causing him to turn and smile, "Morning, Sugu."
She rubs her eyes and yawns, "Morning, Kazuto."
"You look really sleepy. When did you get to bed last night?"
"Let's see...Four, I think?"
He puts on the water and teased, "A kid shouldn't stay up that late. What were you doing?"
"I guess I was on the Internet..." She lies, looking away from him.
Kirito narrows his eyes, "You'd better go easy on that. Not that I should talk."
He turns to her, "Hey, Sugu. Turn around."
"Why?"
"Just do it."
She does what she's told, "Like this?"
He quickly moves her sweater away from her neck, placing cold water on her.
She gasps and screams from the cold.
~
(Y/n) walks through the white hallway, but kept her guard up.
How far does this hallway go?
She asks herself as she kept walking cautiously. Turning the corner, she quickly looks to see if anyone was coming and kept going. She finds something odd, but as she walked toward it, she realized it was a map.
A map...
She looks at it and tried to figure out a exit out of the game.
Somewhere...
She kept looking.
Somewhere there's a console where I can log out...
She stops looking as she found something odd that said Experiment Hangar.
Memories of Sugou telling her all about his plans.
She gritted her teeth at the memory but knew exactly where to go next.
~
After the water fiasco, Kirito and Suguha were making themselves breakfast. She kept pouting to herself as they were cutting some vegetables.
"You'd better buy me a green tea raspberry cream parfait to make up for before." She tells them, "For sure, okay?"
He sighs, "Sure."
"Then you're forgiven." She smiles and turns to him, "So do you want to get it today?"
He shakes his head and sighs, "I have to do something in the afternoon. And I'm planing to go to the hospital this morning."
Sugu's smile slowly fades, "Oh..."
She pauses but starts asks, "Hey, I was wondering...Could I come with you?"
He stops cutting and turns to her in shock.
He smiles, "Sure, why not?"
He turns back to the food, "I'm sure that will make (Y/n) very happy."
She nods and places the food on the table, "All right, let's eat!"
Kirito pauses but smiles at her.
~
Another door was opened and (Y/n) walks inside a strange room filled with odd beakers. She walks around them and tried to get a closer look.
She pauses and her eyes widen. They weren't ordinary beakers, they were brain transmitters from all the players that have yet to wake up.
"This is..." She trails in disbelief.
"By expanding the brain's control regions, it's possible it could control thought, emotion, even memory."
Images of Sugou killing or hurting filled her head, causing her eyes to widen in terror and anger.
"They're suffering!" She turns and looks at every beaker. "They are all...players."
She tightens her fist, "Disgusting! He won't get away with this. Not if I have anything to say about it."
She softly placed her hand on the beaker, "Just wait a little while longer. I'll figure out a way to save you, as soon as I can."
She turns quickly as she hears a noise of the door opening.
"Now, how's it going?" A odd pink glob moves inside the room.
"He's having another dream about Spica." One of the odd snail creature points out.
"The B-13 and B-14 fields are off the scale. Same with 16. High excitement." Another confirms.
"Sure it isn't a coincidence? It's only been three times."
"No, it's due to the emotional inducement circuits. If it's happening at this rate, he's over the threshold."
(Y/n) heard everything as she was hiding behind a beaker not too far away from them.
"For now, put him down for continuous monitoring."
She carefully moves away and tries to find a way out.
~
"Hey, what about school?" Sugu asks her brother while they boarded a bus to the hospital.
"School?"
"Weren't you suppose to start high school last year?" She asks as they found some seats in the back.
"Well..." He trails, looking out the window, "They said something about using one of the empty public school buildings as a temporary school for the students who came back from SAO."
"Now departing." An announcer confirms and the bus started moving.
"There's no entrance exam, and after graduating, you'll be qualified to take the college exams." He finishes explaining.
"I see. That sounds like a good deal..." She turns away, "But they'll be limping lots of different students together."
He laughs and shrugs, "After all, we spent over two years playing a brutal death game on a daily basis. They don't know what it did to our minds. Maybe we'll be together for observation."
She looks at him, "Seriously?"
"But if I wanted to get into a high school the normal way, I'd have to start from scratch and spend the year at cram school. Of course, if I wanted to take the exam on my own, I'm sure I could." He shrugs and kept looking at the window.
"I'm sure you'd do fine. Your grades are good."
Kirito sadly smiles, "'Were.' Past tense. I haven't studied for two years."
She smiles brightly at him, "Then I'll tutor you!"
He smirks, "Then maybe you'll help me with math and information processing."
She moves back and gives a worried expression, causing him to laugh.
~
(Y/n) carefully moves away from the ugly pink snail globs, toward a black box.
She looks at it with determination.
Found it...
Memories of the time when Kirito and her placed Yui on the same thing, except it was shaped as a rectangle.
The system console...
She looks around to see if the odd creatures weren't looking.
They haven't seen me, so that's good...
She waits a few moments and finally rushes to the console.
When she got there, she swipes down a card and hoped it will go her way.
Please...
After a short time, a keyboard appeared in front of her causing her to smile. She looks at the main menu, searching for the 'Log Out' button or something similar to it. She finds a 'Transport' and clicks it.
She grins as she found the 'Leave Virtual Laboratory' tab.
Found it!
She clicks on it and a warning sign appear. She smiles and was about to click, 'Log Out' until she felt someone behind her.
~
"Wow," Sugu awes as they were in front of the hospital, "That's a big hospital."
"It's amazing inside too. Like a hotel." Kirito tells her as they started to go in.
They went on the elevator and went to the hospital room. Once they were in front of it, Sugu reads the name out loud.
"'(Y/n) (L/n).'" She mumbles, "Her character went by the name (U/n), right?"
He nods, "Yeah, it took me a while to actually call her by her real name, but I got the hang of it."
When they were about to walk in, the door opened, revealing a very familiar face.
"A-Asuna?" Kirito asks as the same girl with long orange like hair and orange eyes was in front of them.
"Kazuto?" She stares at him and sadly smiles, "Guess we both wanted to see her, huh?"
He nods and smiles too, "I guess so."
Sugu looks at the two, confused, "Do you two know each other?"
They both look at her and he nods, "We were both stuck in the game together. She was the one who used her own name in the game."
"I see, not many people do that." Sugu comments and he nods.
Asuna rolls her eyes, "How was I suppose to know?"
She sadly smiles, "She's ready for you, by the way. Just wanted to stop by before I start my day."
He nods and smiles at her, "I know she appreciates it."
She nods and starts to leave, "It was nice seeing you."
Before she left, she stops and looks at him, "She'll come back to us soon. I know she will."
With that she leaves and the two siblings head inside.
When they walked inside, they stop in front of her bed.
"I'll introduce you. This is (Y/n). Beta player who soloed with another Beta player in the front lines. The (F/c) swords-woman, (U/n)."
Kirito smiles, "I was never able to match her speed or strength. (Y/n), this is my sister, Suguha."
Sugu's tenses up and smiles, "N-Nice to meet you, (Y/n)."
~
(Y/n) dodges one of the snail's tentacles and flips again, dodging another one.
She tsks and tried to catch her breath.
Even though they look like snails, their stupid tentacles are freakin' fast...
Her thoughts were cut off when she jumps again but gasps as she felt something on her ankle. Her eyes widen when she saw a tentacle around it, and felt many more on her arms.
She grunts and struggles to get out of the snail's grip. She yelps when they brought her towards them, having her hang upside down.
"Who are you? What are you doing here?" One asks.
She glares at them, "If I were you I'd put me down. I'm a friend of Sugou's. He was letting me look around, see if anything was worth the sight."
She smirks, "But all I see is nothing but a bunch of disgusting globs, so I'm leaving."
They ignore her remark, "No on notified me about this."
He turns to its friend, "What about you?"
It shakes his head, "Nothing. He wouldn't want outsiders seeing this anyway."
One of them move their eyeballs closer to her, "Hold on. You're that girl Sugou keeps at the top of the World Tree."
"I've heard about that. It's so unfair that the boss gets to have all the fun with the cute girl."
(Y/n) struggles and tries to use her foot to touch the 'Log Out' button. The snail noticed it, and used their tentacles to grab her foot.
"Come on, keep still."
She moves around and tried to get out, "Hands off, ugly!"
"That's so mean..." One of them teased, "We're in the midst of an experiment on deep-sense mapping."
"You're scientists, aren't you?" She glares at them, "Aren't you ashamed in participating in this illegal, unethical experiment?"
"I think it's more ethical than sticking electrical probes into exposed animal brain. They're all just dreaming." One of them explains.
"That's right. Sometimes, we show them the most wonderful dreams. I wish I were in their shoes."
She keeps glaring at them and tsks, "You're insane."
They ignore her, "The boss is on a trip, right? Get back to the other side, and see what he wants to do."
One of them pouts, "Fine...Hey, don't have any fun without me while I'm gone."
The other rolls it's weird eyes, "Got it, got it. Get going."
One logs out, leaving the other with (Y/n).
"Let go!" She yells at him but he smirks.
"I can't! The boss would kill me!" He smiles creepily, "But anyway...Why don't we enjoy some electro-drugs? I'm sick of dolls."
She gives him a look of disgust and felt his tentacles caressing her cheek.
"Stop it..." She yells and felt more on her exposed stomach, "What the hell are you doing?!"
She felt it's tentacles around her legs, stomach, neck, and arms. Once one of them was in her face she bites him.
He wails in pain, "Stop! Fine! Fine..."
He lets go but kept her captured, "I forgot I turned off the pain absorber."
The other snail comes back and looks at him, "What are you doing?"
"Nothing. Anyways, what did the boss say?" He asks while putting (Y/n) upside up.
"He was livid. He said to return her to the birdcage above the lab, change the code and monitor her 24/7."
She glares at them when the snail who violated her comments, "And I was just about to have some fun..."
While they were discussing what to do, she narrows her eyes at the black console and sees a card sticking out of it.
"Instead of teleporting her back, let's walk her. I want to feel her a little more." The perve snail comments with a smile.
"You are a perve." The other points out but they both heard something coming (Y/n)'s direction.
"Come on, no more struggling." They said and hoarse her on their back.
"Let go! You fucking perve!" She yells.
They ignore her pleads and started walking back to the birdcage.
~
The two siblings, look at (Y/n)'s unconscious body.
She's so pretty...
Sugu compliments as they both look at her.
It's a shame that she's still asleep...
She felt very unsure as she walks away.
Maybe I shouldn't have come...
She takes the flowers beside her bed to the sink.
I don't know how I feel...
She pours out the water from the pot.
I thought if I met (Y/n), I'd know...
But...Do I want to be a good sister?
She finishes preparing the flowers but stood there.
Or do I...
She walks back to the room and sees Kirito holding (Y/n)'s hand. His eyes were filled with worry and hope.
She grips the pot tighter.
Kazuto...
~
They place (Y/n) back in the birdcage and lock the gate.
"Bye. Let's play again if we have the chance." The perve snail laughs and they slither away.
(Y/n) walks to the edge and gave a look of determination.
I won't stop! I will never give up. I will escape this place!
She held the card from the console and grips it.
Just wait a little while longer...
~
Leafa wakes up and sits at the edge of her bed. She heard someone logging in and knew it was Kirito.
"Leafa?" He calls and noticed something was off, "What's wrong?"
She looks at him with tears in her eyes, "Um...Um, Kirito..."
Tears were falling as she smiled, "I...I...My heart was just broken..."
She turns away from him and covers her face, "I'm sorry, saying all this to someone I just met. It's against etiquette to bring real-world problems here."
She felt him sit by her, "Whether you're here or in the real world, you can cry when it hurts."
He comforts her but doesn't look at her.
"There's no rule that you can't show feelings just because it's a game." He tells her since he had the same experience.
She turns to him, "Kirito..."
She sniffs and cries on his shoulder.
I'm in love with my brother...I can't ever speak of these feelings...
Kirito just sits there and let's her cry.
I have to bury them deep in my heart...So that I can forget them someday...
A bell rings and Leafa had finally calmed down.
"I'm okay. Thanks, Kirito." She wipes away her leftover tears and smiles at him, "You're sweet , aren't you?"
He hums and rubs his head, "People often say the exact opposite about me."
"Want to log off for today? I think I can make it the rest of the way myself." He tells her but she shakes her head.
"No...I've come this far. I'll go the rest of the way."
She gets up from the bed and holds out her hand, "Now, let's go."
He smirks and takes her hand, getting up.
"Yui, you here?" He calls and Yui appears on his shoulder.
She yawns and smiles, "Good morning, Daddy and Leafa."
"Morning, Yui." Leafa greets with a smile, "Hey, I was wondering yesterday...Do Navi-Pixies sleep at night?"
She shakes her head, "Of course not. But when Daddy's not here, I shut down my input circuits and process accumulated data. It could be similar to human sleep."
"But you just yawned..."
"That's what humans do during their boot-up sequence, right? On average, Daddy's last eight seconds." She points out.
Kirito awkwardly smiles, "You don't have to tell us off things like that."
Leafa laughs at the two.
"Okay, let's go."
"Yeah."
~
They walk through the city and sees many players.
"It's really bustling." Leafa points out.
"I guess it really is the center of ALheim."
They walk through the streets with smiles on their faces.
"It seems that all the fairy races from around the continent are here." Yui pops out from Kirito's pocket.
Leafa sees a couple laughing together, causing her to blush as she looked at Kirito.
They walk up a few stairs and looks up to see The World Tree.
"That's the World Tree." Kirito awes as they looked at it.
"Yeah. Seeing it up close, it's amazing, isn't it?" Leafa compliments as they kept staring.
"Isn't there a city up there? And also..."
"The Fairy King Oberon lives there with the light fairies, the Alfs." Leafa explains, "And they say the first race to meet with the king will be able to reincarnate as Alfs."
"You can't climb it on the outside?" He asks.
"The area around the trunk is off-limits, so you can't climb it. And your wings' flight limit would expire long before you'd make it to the top."
Kirito nods, "I heard that some people passed the limit by launching off each other's shoulders..."
Leafa laughs, "Oh, that story, huh? I hear they made it pretty close to the branches. But the GMs freaked out and patched it right away. Now there's a wall just above the clouds."
"I see..." He turns to Leafa with a smile, "For now, let's head to the bottom of the tree."
He walks off and she trails behind with a smile, "Yeah, got it."
They all walked and talked for a short while, laughing amongst themselves.
They reached to the gate of the central district of Arun.
Leafa points at it, "Once you pass through that gate, you're at the world's heart, the central district of Arun."
They walk towards it and once they pass through the gate, Yui pops out of Kirito's pocket with a gasp.
They stopped and look at her with concern.
"Hey, Yui. What's wrong?" Kirito asks her.
She takes a moment and mumbles, "Momma..."
He gasps and his eyes widen.
"It's Mommy. She's here!" She confirms and Kirito looks up.
"You're sure?" He asks quickly.
"I'm certain. This player ID belongs to Mommy. The coordinates are right above us!" She points up at the Tree.
Kirito looks up and grits his teeth. His wings appear and quickly flies up causing a gust of wind to appear.
"Kirito!" Leafa calls as she was left behind. "Wait!"
He ignores her calls and flies up more.
"Kirito!"
___________________________
MERRY CHRISTMAS EVE EVERYONE!!! THIS IS ONE OF MY PRESENTS TO YOU♥️ILY ALL WHO HAVE BEEN SUPPORTING MY BOOKS SINCE THE BEGINNING:) THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING AND JUST BEING YOU<3 LOVE YOU AND HOPE YOU HAVE A MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!
~Lovelyrya♥️