Nothing more than a medium,

Made solely for ‘their’ kin,

By the creators...

Don’t even understand, yet still...

Only just a myth outside ‘their’ perimeters.

So does the kin apart from for the others,

It’s ashes from the creators...

Torn as it must,

To bits,

Born as it shall,

For magick it is...

An endless void......

Trapped in eternal darkness,

Alone, for who knows how long...

No more intimate companion, apart from his so called ‘old friend’, until...

“...to-kun!”

[?]

“...ease an... me!”

[A... Voice? Sounds very familiar...Wait, is that...]

“ޏú fylla heilagr austr, brott svalr bani!”

[That spell. As...una? That’s right, it was her! Asuna...]

It could only be her voice, he wasn’t mistaken! Kirito’s mind raced as he tried to get a hold of his surroundings, which he soon realized was a futile attempt as he realised that he couldn’t even move a single muscle, let alone opening his eyes.

He didn’t know what happened to him. One moment, he was heading for the gates of Yggdrasil with Asuna, and then everything just blacked out...

It was as if he was in some kind of a limbo, slowly drifting away... As if something or someone, was trying to take him away by force, until now that is. Now, it seems that the only thing that was preventing him from going any further than where he currently is, was none other than ‘her’, his Asuna’s voice...

[Then, has the time finally come? Did I die? Or am I, dying?]

As he contemplated about the things that he had to let go, he couldn’t just sit back and accept it,

[No! I don’t want to! There are still many more things that I have yet to do, that I have yet to experience! Am I just going to disappear without even fulfilling any of them?]

He was afraid, afraid to lose everything that he holds dear. It was as if he was a child again; left alone in a dark room, afraid of monsters that will come to get him...

“Kirito-kun!” The yearning, but most of all, that desperation in Asuna’s voice was more than enough to make Kirito completely forgo his fear, along with his own selfish thoughts as he tried harder to do something to get out of his predicament, but unfortunately...

[Oh, I so much want to answer her but... I just can’t... Me who even overpowered the laws of Virtual Worlds, is helpless against death it seems. I’ve never felt so powerless... It’s as if...]

His thoughts were interrupted by a heart-wrenching sob of his Asuna, who unfortunately broke down, crying.

“Kirito-kun! Onegai! Hitori ni shinaide!!”

[No, Asuna! I’m right here! Asuna!]

Even though she was crying, she managed to chant the spell flawlessly.

“ޏú fylla heilagr austr, brott svalr bani!”

Kirito could painfully hear her shaky, weak voice as she was religiously repeating the same Undine spell for the second time, hoping that after this, her Kirito would come back to her...

[Asuna! Asuna! Stop this!]

“ޏú fylla heill austr!”

[Yametekure, Asuna...]

No matter how much he tried, his voice couldn’t reach her...

“Þeír fylla h-heilagr austr, brott svalr b-bani!”

She was obviously out of breath, but she still tried again and again.

[Please! Asuna, stop! You’re only making it more painful!]

“ޏú f-fylla heilagr austr, brott svalr bani!”

[Damn it!]

[If there’s any god or devil out there, I don’t care what you take from me or where you send me, so please, please at least let me just have a few final words with her!]

It was a first for Kirito, not when he was suffering from cancer, not even when he lost Yui did he felt this desperate and powerless, to the point of even being willing to beg for help from a higher power.

The reason for his desperation in wanting so much to have some final words with his beloved was not just because he wanted to spend some precious time together with his loved one for the last time, but it was also for something else; something far more important to him yet so painfully disturbing, that he had to regularly contain himself just to avoid broaching the subject with her.

The rare times that he did manage to broach the subject, his attempts were proven to be fruitless, thanks to one High-Sylph Lady who oh so stubbornly changes the subject immediately as she doesn’t want to point out the obvious.

It was the obvious fact that there was a very real chance of Asuna committing suicide if she had somehow lost him. Something which she plainly said to him back in SAO, that she would kill herself if Kirito ever died before her, which made such possibility much greater with Yui gone as well...

He was no fool, he knew when Asuna was serious, and at those times, no matter the backlash, she would always stay true to her words, mean everything that she said to the point of not even hesitating to prove if need be. That was one of the reasons that he had fallen in love with her in the first place.

She had already more than proved her resolve with her actions on more than one occasions, with what happened with Heathcliff, taking the sword blow in Kirito’s place... Not to mention when they learned that he was cancer, she clearly outdid herself by looking after him which only strengthened their love for each other.

Kirito wasn’t really disturbed by her commitment, no, he even welcomed it as she was his wife, so there was nothing wrong with it. But seeing Asuna’s determination and unquestionable loyalty to him didn’t make Kirito as happy as he thought he would be either.

As he too loved Asuna just as much as she did him, he didn’t want to see her going through with her words, giving up on life just because he is no longer with her... There was much more to life, if only she just let time do it’s work, slowly erasing all the pain, along with all the love she felt for him at some part of her life, turning them to just what they should be, just memories... Then everything would be okay, wouldn’t it?

So, Kirito had made plans to talk her out of this some time in the near future as he didn’t want her to give up on life because of him, but when he attempted to broach the subject, even when so much as utter a vague statement, Asuna just changed the subject with surprising ease, not even giving a chance for Kirito to come up with something to counter her efforts.

So that was why he had to tell her!

Tell her to live!

Tell her to not give up!

Tell her to forget about him!

Tell her to forget about Yui...

But did he really have the right to decide for her?

Even though he knew he was being a hypocrite here as he couldn’t even imagine forgiving himself if ever he forgot about Asuna or Yui... But he didn’t care! So he was being a hypocrite! So what? Like he gives a crap! He was fine being a hypocrite so long as Asuna lives the fulfilling life that she deserves.

“~ޏú fylla heilagr austr, brott svalr bani!~”

This time, there was a strange melody on the background as the exhausted girl poured everything she had left in her while chanting her last spell...

Her voice that was blended uniquely well with the melody took on a mysterious form, almost an ethereal one that could even captivate the most lowly beings who don’t even possess any sense as to what a music is.

As Asuna went on with the spell, with every magic word that she cried out, it was as if the melody grew even sadder, while at the same time it also grew even more hopeful. But that was not all... Her words contained not just sadness or hope, but also anger as well; albeit hidden.

There were anger seeped deep within every one of her magic words, hiding in secret, carrying the will of it’s caster. She was feeling angry at her own powerlessness to save her Kirito-kun, but most of all, she was very angry at the reality that her Kirito had to go through this, after all that suffering... They didn’t even get to marry in real life! Right after they lost their child, now they were again loosing something very important to them? How can she be not angry?

So, feeling that her beloved didn’t deserve such an ending, she decided to heal him with everything she got, not even caring that what she was doing inside the game was obviously futile, if Kirito’s real body died, then she had nothing to do... But... But maybe his consciousness can live on? Even though she failed to get her hands on the technology to achieve that, maybe they won’t even need something like that in the first place?

A desperate attempt made by a mind on the verge of breaking...

She was so obssesed on trying to revive Kirito that she didn’t even notice the thousand abnormalities all around her that shouldn’t even exist inside a game...

Right after she finished chanting her final spell, she didn’t even have the time to be surprised about seeing Kirito start breathing again as she found herself loosing her balance before falling down on the ground, loosing consciousness...

It had not been even an hour since she, along with a decent piece of Alfheim were transported into a new system by the hacking of the ‘Intruder’. By the time she was able to stop the hacking, it was already too late, nevertheless, she managed to stop the Intruder from deleting her files by sacrificing the Yggdrasil City, as well as the other Faery cities and most of their lands which served to buy enough time for her to create a diversion by confusing the attacker into thinking that it was successfully deleting all of the remainder of The Seed, what it really was deleting was just a backup program similar to ALO to protect against hackers, which by how the things went, worked perfectly well. So, only the former capital, now the Capital Faery City of Alne was left intact, along with the surrounding plato and mountains that serve as a natural defense against potential enemy attacks, all safe from the ‘Intruder’ who was in the dark before it was too late.

She was successfully able to force-teleport all of the ‘online’ Faeries who were outside of the perimeters of the new Faery Capital of Alne to the City Hall located at the center of the capital, apart from the players in Aincrad of course as it was the first to be hacked, and first to be deleted so she couldn’t even have the time to teleport the players on it.

Yggdrasil was watching the spectacle in mild curiosity as the female Sylph Faery poured her everything into her last spell which surprisingly succeeded in saving the poor male Sylph who was at the death’s door. This act was quite foreign to her as she was just ‘born’ when the Cardinal’s files accidentally mixed with that of the World Tree; Yggdrasil’s, promoting Yggdrasil from a Top-Down AI program to a Bottom-Up program that gave her a consciousness, which was further developed by some currently unknown factors after the ‘Transition’.

As the mother of all the Faeries, Yggdrasil cares for her children equally, and could feel everything that they were feeling as long as they were in her area of influence. So it should come as a no surprise that she was slightly overwhelmed by how complicated a creature the Faeries had proved to be since the ‘Transition’.

Not surprisingly though, the most complicated ones among the Faeries were the two right in front of her ‘doorstep’, who also were among the highest among their race. Since they were simply too different from the others, especially with the way that the female Faery was behaving just now, she better kept an eye on them, but first things first, she should improve on the defenses...