50Alfheim Online: Path to Recollection
Chapter One: Moving Forward Alone
Author's Note
And the story of the swordswoman of Gun Gale Online continues. To those of you who were expecting another chapter to the work that started it all, Gun Gale Online: The Swordswoman, I'm sorry. That story is on hiatus for the time being, and if I do continue, I might just do a rewrite of it that starts right after Kiriko leaves Klein, and continues onward without any of the major timeskips featured in the original.
So, about this story. This is the sequel to Gun Gale Online: the Swordswoman. Or, at least, to one of the possible endings of the initial story that I have planned. There is actually another story that takes place in between, but I might not get to it for a while.
As per the usual with my stories, these warnings will apply:
Female Kirito. That's a damn given by now.
Yuri romance included. Anyone who wants a straight female Kirito will be severely disappointed by this fic. Homophobes are not welcome here.
This one isn't very typical for me. This story is the sequel to a story that I have not finished. As such, it could contain some spoilers. Luckily, you won't see most of them for a while because of the way I set the premise up.
You'll see what I mean. See you at the bottom!
When someone suffers a major setback or loss, people will often tell them not to turn back. To keep moving forward. Whether they make take that advice is up to them.
That's where they're lucky.
For me, there is no turning back. There just simply isn't anything to turn back to, no matter how much I wish there was. No matter how much everyone wishes there was. There's nothing there. The only semblance of a past I have to remember is one year, and even most of that is hazy.
But even so, I move forward. Even with all my setbacks, even though I went through so much just to relearn even the most basic of things, I keep moving onward, never looking back.
After all, what's the point of turning back when there's nowhere to go but forward?
"You worry too much," I teased the person on the other end of the phone line. A moment later, I spoke again. "Don't worry, I'm fine. My rehab is done, I don't need anyone here anymore except for Shadow."
I sighed. "Yeah, I know I'll have to go to school eventually. I just don't want to have to start over, that's all. I don't know where I was at, but it'd just be embarrassing if I had to start back at middle school or something. I'm seventeen, for crying out loud!"
A few moments later, my anger had subsided and was replaced with curiosity. "A tutor? I guess that's a thought. Just give me some time to sit on it, all right?"
I smiled, though I knew the person on the other end couldn't see it. "Thanks. I love you, too. Bye!"
Click
I put my cellphone in the pocket of my dark gray, baggy jeans, standing up from my soft, black leather chair. Walking the few steps needed to close the distance between me and my closet, I opened it and pulled out a black denim jacket, putting it on over my dark gray t-shirt with a slight struggle. Even if I had graduated from in-home rehab, I didn't have too much strength built up yet.
"I need to get some reading in," I whispered to myself, releasing a sigh as I walked across my wooden floor towards the front door. "And some fresh air couldn't hurt, either."
The automated jingle of simulated bells rang through the speakers above me as I nonchalantly walked through the open door of my favorite manga and game shop. It was a small, quiet place run by a fat man in his mid-twenties with scruffy facial hair and an outwardly grouchy personality.
He's a good guy, though, I gave him his due credit in my mind as I laxly sauntered over to the section of the store that housed the young adult manga. I heard a soft song playing through the speakers placed in strategic locations throughout the store, though the auto-tuned voice of the singer undoubtedly belonged to a Vocaloid, as per the usual with this place.
Though the songs he plays are usually more bouncy than this…
It didn't take me long to find the book I started the day before; I deliberately put it in the wrong spot on the shelf so it would stand out. I picked it off the shelf, looking at the title just to make sure. It read,
Gun Gale Online
As Told by the Survivors
Volume 5: Game-Changer
This was the most recent volume, and its series served as the only window I had to my past. Even if my memories of that time were gone, those of the other survivors would forever remain engraved in their minds; that much was certain.
Putting the book in my left hand, I reached into my jacket pocket with my right, pulling out a piece of memo paper. Various numbers were written and crossed out in messy scrawl, increasing as the list went down. I stopped at the last number, the only one with no line through it to tell me it was obsolete.
I24 – the page I left off on yesterday. I didn't really need to write it down; I remembered the number instinctively, as always. But after what apparently happened to me, I didn't want to leave anything to chance. I wrote everything I needed to remember down on various memo pads, from the pages of books I had stopped on, to the time that my physical rehab therapist used to come to my home.
I opened up the manga volume, leafing through its intricately-drawn pages until I reached my desired page. Unfortunately, I didn't get to read a single line of dialogue before a rude interruption made me snap the book closed in an instant.
"Oi, freeloader!" the chubby, bearded man behind the counter called out to me, his gruff tone matching his appearance perfectly.
"What's up, chubs?" my reference to his stature didn't go unnoticed by him as I turned and walked over to the display case of a counter, the manga volume still in my hands.
When I reached the counter, he looked no angrier than before; if anything, he looked calm. His unusual blue eyes hadn't any malice in them, and his cheeks lacked the irritated frown that would normally contort his blond beard. In other words, something was seriously strange with him.
For once, he isn't putting up the 'angry manager' act for me, I mused as I looked him over. His attire, too, had changed; his usual, unfashionable bright green t-shirt had been replaced by a loose-fitting sky-blue shirt that slightly lessened his rather corpulent appearance.
I couldn't see anything else of him behind the counter, so I decided to end my analysis of his rather strangely-timed image change. Once he took notice that I had ceased looking him over, he began to speak in a slightly curious tone, another first in my few months knowing him. He had always tried to sound irritated with me before, even after we became acquainted with each other and got on good terms.
"Your cousin isn't with you today?" he asked me; though his tone had changed, his curt speech patterns remained the same.
I tried to refrain from wincing; when we first introduced ourselves, I had made the excuse that my in-home rehab therapist was my cousin to prevent any awkward situations from arising. Even so, I still felt kind of bad for lying to him, as I had ever since we became somewhat akin to friends.
"Ah…" I rubbed the back of my head with my free hand, trying to ease my nerves. "He went back to where he lives, since he decided to finally get a job instead of live with me all the time."
Another lie spun into my web of previous deceptions. However, the manager, who I knew by the nickname, 'Sel', didn't appear to notice my unease. If he did, he didn't point it out; he was always the type that could sense when not to pry.
"Really, now," Sel more stated than asked, his expression changing ever-so-slightly into one that I had identified as his personal version of surprise. "That's good for him."
At this point, I could no longer contain myself. "Just how many contradictions are you going to make with your character?" I asked him in a no-nonsense tone.
This seemed to snap him back to his reality – the reality that he was dealing with his most frequent visitor, yet also most unprofitable customer. His face remained the same, but his demeanor and tone changed drastically.
"Excuse me. I've been a bit too bouncy today," he explained with a rub to the back of his neck, only arising more questions from within me.
"Why?" I queried, though I doubted he would answer me.
"That book," he pointed to the volume of Gun Gale in my left hand, then pointed to the counter in front of him. "Put it up here."
Thinking he was going to take it from me, but also not wanting to get kicked out, I reluctantly placed it on the counter – though it was really just the top of the glass display case where he kept some of his more popular games. He eyed it for no more than a second before turning back to me with an almost sympathetic expression.
He's so out of character today, it's not even funny.
"That's what I thought," he sighed. "Ever since you first came here, that's all you've ever read about – that disaster of a VRMMO, Gun Gale Online."
"What of it?" My tone held no malice – no real emotions got through when I talked about the incident with someone. Most of them told me I needed to remember, and I had found that the best defense was to lose my emotions until they stopped.
But, I reminded myself after studying his contemplative face. He wouldn't do that. He doesn't even know that I'm a survivor.
"The wife's finally out of the hospital," he stated out of the blue. From what I gathered, his wife was a survivor of GGO, just as I was – the difference would be that she undoubtedly remembered everything about her time in the game. The thought made me slightly jealous.
His occasional mentions of his wife in his chats with my "cousin" led me to believe that his wife had suffered some kind of stroke when the game was cleared, and she fell into a coma. If she had gotten out of the hospital, then that would mean she had woken up and been through rehab. Even her waking up was news to me.
After a short pause, he continued. "She's a survivor of the incident, you see. She plans to run the shop with me once she's finished with the in-home rehab."
I could already see where this was going, but I waited for him to prove my hypothesis. If I was right, I would be out my one source of solace that carried me through each boring day.
"You're a smart kid, I can tell." This was the first time he had complimented me with no sarcasm, so it caught me slightly off guard. "I'm sure I don't have to explain why, but you can imagine that she probably wouldn't appreciate a person who buys nothing and just sits all day and reads about the source of her trauma."
"So I'm not allowed to come here anymore?"
This assumption of mine, if true, was a double-edged sword. I would be out my one source of entertainment and self-knowledge, sure, but… if I stayed, then the consequences might be much, much worse.
"How could you forget about me?!"
"Please, you have to remember!"
These words, along with the one who shouted them at me, flashed through my mind for the faintest of moments, putting a bitter expression on me for their duration.
"No, I'm not gonna shoo you away just like that." He must have mistook my dark look's cause for the more outwardly obvious – that I didn't want to leave. His next question came as quite the surprise.
"You're at least a little curious about virtual reality, right?"
My eyes widened as my bitter frown vanished, all of my thoughts blown away at his question. "A-a little, I guess," were the only words I could manage.
"Thought so," he said, bending down until all I could see was his back to grab something below the display case. With a grunt, he stood back up, a thin, rectangular game box in his right hand. He gently dropped it on the counter in front of me, allowing me to study it.
The cover art depicted two oddly-clothed people floating in the air in the forefront of a scene of several trees where each and every leaf had as much realistic detail as possible for the small picture scaling of the box cover. Above the trees was a beautiful depiction of a cloudy night sky, with a full moon that somehow looked breathtakingly realistic in the center.
None of those things seemed as strange as the odd, leaf-like shapes of red and green that seemed to originate from the backs of the people on the right and left, respectively. It took me a moment, but eventually, I started to piece together what they were – or, at least, what they were supposed to be.
Wings.
Once I made that connection, it was impossible to look away. Why did they have wings? And wings of colored light, at that? What was this picture depicting?
Before I could ask myself any more questions, the box was slid backwards by the hand that obscured my view of it. I looked up to find Sel looking at me with a knowing smirk.
"It's called, 'Alfheim'," he informed me, picking the box up and pointing to the title at the bottom-center, the one thing I had yet to take in. "Alfheim Online. It's the new thing, a VRMMO that's been proven safe to play. A friend sent it to me as a sick practical joke."
He held it out in front of me, waiting until I began to reach for it before speaking. "I'll cut you a deal," he said, waving the box up and down in front of me. "You take it off my hands, free of charge."
"And what do you want in return?" I didn't believe for a second that the price would be cheap, even if – no, especially if it didn't involve money.
"If you want it, there are two choices you can make," he answered me, holding up his index and middle finger right in front of the game box. "One: you stop coming here entirely." One finger went down. "Or two: you make sure that, whenever my wife's running the shop with me, you don't pull out a single volume of Gun Gale, even for a second."
"Option two," I said in a heartbeat. I felt bad, though; I was lying to him again.
Because as soon as she gets here, I'll never come back.
I locked the front door of my house from behind me, taking off my shoes and slipping into my house slippers on the edge of the plain, gray entry rug.
Gray. Gray, white and black. Everything in my house, whether it be the floor, the blinds, the furniture, or even the lightbulbs of the lamps, everything lacked the presence of the color that gave a house life.
I had no pictures in my house; there was no one to take them with. I lived alone after I was released from the hospital-based rehab, having moved away to avoid my apparent sister's constant attempts to get me to remember her. The only contact I had with the people who used to be my family consisted of periodic phone calls with my mom, who seemed to be the only level-headed person that the old me knew.
I was alone, save for the few people who I met in this suburban place and the man in his mid-twenties that came over occasionally for in-home rehab. But, as of yesterday, even that presence had disappeared.
I had no one to share close moments with, no one to help me up when I fell down. But I liked it that way.
After all, what good are you if you can't stand on your own two feet?
I opened my eyes as I felt the all-too familiar feeling of something rubbing against my legs. I looked down to find my gray tabby cat, an adolescent female named Shadow that I found as a kitten shortly after moving into this house, nuzzling against me in what seemed like a plea for my attention.
I knelt down to give her some loving as thanks for his true efforts. Scratching behind her ears gently, I tenderly whispered, "You're psychic, aren't you, kitty? You always come when I'm starting to get depressed."
She meowed in what I knew to be affirmation of the latter part of my claim. Okay, so she wasn't really psychic, but she could sense a person with low spirits a kilometer away and immediately come bounding over to comfort them. It was a miracle, in a sense, that I found her when I moved here.
It seems I wasn't alone, after all.
"Let's get you some dinner, hmm?" I suggested as I slowly stood up, watching as Shadow walked towards the kitchen at my mention of dinner.
I stayed still for a moment, watching as my faithful cat stopped in her tracks and turned around to face me. Was that an act of loyalty, or was she just stopping to make sure I followed through and got her some food?
I was in an optimistic mood, so I decided to believe the former.
So this is what did it, huh?
The object in question sat in a large, square cardboard box that I had just pulled out from under my bed and opened for the first time since it had been filled. I had but a vague idea of what it looked like beforehand, though I had seen it before. About a year ago, in fact. But then, that's exactly why I had no recollection of its appearance.
Because my mind as it is now is really only a year old. The moment I woke up one year ago, I had none of the knowledge, the memories, or anything else that was within the mind of Kirigaya Kimiko. And yet…
"How could you forget about me?!"
"Please, just try to remember me!"
"You have to remember! You just have to!"
"Shut up! Just shut up, all of you! Leave me alone!"
I clutched my head as the scared, angry, frantic, hysteric voices of so many people shouting at me to remember them swam through my racing mind. I grit my teeth as wave after wave of pain pulsed through my head, like jolts of electricity that spiked with every shouted word that flashed through my jumbled mind, each one louder than the last.
My eyes shut tight as the shouts and shocking sensations continued to ravage my brain, tears brought up by pain leaking from the corners of my clenched eyelids.
Please… no more!
"Kiriko… you don't have to be alone anymore."
And then, in an instant, everything stopped. The voices silenced themselves, the pain vanished, and my thoughts returned to normal speed. It left me with no energy, and I nearly collapsed to the ground before I hurriedly put my arms out in front of me to break my fall.
My breathing was ragged, my heart still pounding erratically, but slowly, they too, were returning to normal. My eyes slowly opened and I looked into the opened cardboard box once more, blinking away the blurriness and tears.
Inside the box, on top of some bubble wrap to keep it intact, rested a smooth, dark, grayish blue, helmet-like device. It had a transparent, dark green visor that would undoubtedly cover a wearer's eyes and then some.
I picked it up with my hands, its weight dispelling the last of their residual tremors. As I raised it up to my face, a cord connected to the back began to rise with it. This was the device that trapped me, the device that somehow led to the loss of my memories.
The Nerve Gear.
The mere thought that I might be using it again soon should have sent shivers of fear down my spine. And yet, contrary to anything I would have expected, the weight and feel headset in my hands excited me, as if I had just got in line for a scary, yet incredibly thrilling roller coaster ride. It made no sense, but I had no intention of dwelling on it.
I turned it around, finding a groove on the top of the head, slightly towards the back. I put my right hand up to it and pried it gently, watching as a compartment slid open and revealed an empty slot for a game.
Of course they would have taken the cartridge for GGO out, I mused. I had no memory of it, but I had apparently been told that when the doctors tried to take it from me, I latched onto it and wouldn't let it go until they agreed not to take it and destroy it. I don't really know why they let me keep it in the end, though. Maybe they were just showing sympathy for a teenage girl with the mind of an infant, but it still seems kinda strange.
I set the Nerve Gear and its cord down to the right of the large, cardboard box, next to another box – the game box for Alfheim Online. I figured that if the cartridge for ALO fit inside the Nerve Gear without any trouble, then they would most likely be compatible. If not, then I would have to ask my mom to send me some money so that I could buy the hardware stated to be required on the box, the AmuSphere. Of course, I wouldn't tell her that that's what I would be using the money for.
I opened the box for ALO, taking out a cartridge that had a miniature depiction of the people on the cover of the box as a sticker on the front. I turned it around in my hand, looking it over before putting it next to the empty slot in the nerve gear to compare the size.
It looks like it'll fit perfectly, I hypothesized. I waited a few moments before inserting the cartridge, listening with satisfaction as it slid smoothly in until a click could be heard as it finally locked into place.
I smiled, heart racing as I slid the compartment shut over the inserted game. Everything was going perfectly; there was only a bit more left to do before I could experience a taste of what the original, true Kirigaya Kimiko experienced in Gun Gale Online.
Of course, the risk of death would no longer be a part of the package. This somehow brought less comfort to me than I thought it would. It's almost like a part of me believed that even if death was a possibility, I would have no need to worry, like I was strong enough that it didn't even matter.
I entertained that stray thought for no more than an instant. Whatever happened in that game, I didn't come away unscathed. Though I didn't die in the physical sense, there was another part of me, the Kirigaya Kimiko that everyone else knew, that was left behind in that world.
So, in a way, you could say that I died a year ago, and the Kimiko now is nothing more than a baby born from the ashes the original left behind.
That's enough, I reprimanded myself. I could hear Shadow pawing at my closed bedroom door, so I knew my emotions must have been intense enough for him to read from wherever he was in the house. You've got to stop this. You're making Shadow worry.
I took a few deep breaths, calming myself until I heard the pawing at my door, and the faint sound of my cat padding away. He thought I was okay again, and that's what mattered.
I picked up the Nerve Gear and grabbed its cord, walking over to the bed in the corner of the room farthest from the window. Setting the headset on my white pillow and plugging its cord into the wall outlet beside my bed for internet connection, I moved the light gray blanket aside.
A few moments later, I was all set up. The Nerve Gear was on my head, the battery icon in the corner of its visor showing the charging symbol after having run dry due to prolonged rest. My body was under the covers so as to protect me from the cold, laying down in a comfortable position on my back.
Despite everything being just fine so far, my heart wouldn't stop racing. It already felt as if I were doing something exciting in the world of Alfheim Online, like flying. That sounded really fun.
In my excitement, I almost forgot what to do next. It took me a few seconds to calm my nerves enough to remember what I had read off of the back of the game box for ALO.
So, what I say is…
Somehow, before I remembered from the box, I already found myself instinctively uttering the exact phrase needed.
"Link Start!"
That was the turning point. Looking back on it now, that was the exact moment of the exact day that my walk – no, sprint down the path towards recollection began. I didn't know it then, but that was the first step to remembering who I was…
And becoming who I am.
Author's Note
What do you think of that? If you want the truth, this isn't the first draft of the chapter. The original was shorter, not finished, lacked decent description, and had no emotional depth. I took a look at the first draft about twelve hours ago, and I immediately started making this out of it.
This was probably one of the longest chapters I've written in ages, and it had one of my best times in recent months, to boot. I'm impressed with even myself here.
Anyway, I'd love some thoughts on this. Preferably ones that actually last more than one line, if you would be so inclined.
I guess that's all for now. See you all next chapter
