Sword Art Online: Knights of Aincrad

Chapter 5 - Anger, Sadness, Resolve

Three days have passed since the loss of Golgoroso and Sortiliena and things have been quiet in the Knights of Aincrad's base. The guild was quiet over these days but still pursued to level up. They did have a small funeral in which Kirito left immediately afterwards to go level. Kirito has done a lot of leveling over the past three days which has made Eugeo, Eydis, and Alice worry. Along with leveling Kirito barely talks to anyone in the guild, even his closest friends.

That night Eydis woke up from a nightmare, which she's been having more of recently. To clear her head she decided to walk out to the guilds balcony to get some fresh air, only to see Kirito there. He turned around to see who came to the balcony and was surprised to see Eydis. Eydis immediately noticed dried tear stains on his face and simply stared. "You can have the balcony now, I gotta get ready for another busy day" Kirito said in a low tone and started walking away. Eydis was furious after hearing that and once he was beside her about to walk away she grabbed his wrist.

"You're not going anywhere Kirito" Eydis said angrily, "you and I are going to have a long chat about your recent behavior." Kirito was visibly scared for his life when he saw Eydis look in her eye. He knew he hadn't been the best friend in the past three days but it was for a good reason, or was it? Now staring at Eydis, Kirito began to regret his actions. Not only could he see anger in her eyes but sadness as well. "You're not going to say a word until I'm done, even then I don't know if I still want you to say anything! You're worrying all of us Kirito, you leave for long amounts of time and don't say a word. All of us are scared, Kirito, the guild, Eugeo and Alice, a-and me. I get that your crush was slain right in front of you and it destroyed your world, truly I do, but I have nightmares, endless nightmares, of my teammates on floor one dying over and over again. I'm sure you do too, and maybe that's why you're out here, but you can't leave us in the dark. You saved me Kirito, you took me into your friend group and treated me like I had been there forever and I never got to properly say thank you for that. You make my life easier, you make sure the younger ones in our guild don't have to live in fear, you are without a doubt one of the strongest if not the strongest in our guild, and you are the reason more people made it out of that dungeon. We need you back to your normal self, I need you back to your normal self because not only are my old teammates dying in my nightmares, you are dying as well and I can't bear it anymore. So please please come back to us..." Eydis ended. In what started out with anger turned into sadness with her nearly bawling her eyes out.

Kirito didn't know what to do, he was dumbfounded. He then pulled Eydis into a tight embrace and let her cry all over his shirt. "I'm sorry Eydis I just wanted to be stronger for everyone so no one else has to die, I never realized what a burden I've put on you and everyone else" Kirito muttered in her ear, "I'll stop going out on my own and stay with you guys from now on, no matter what." All Eydis did was not her head and stayed glued to chest. When the snuffles stopped Kirito noticed she somehow fell asleep. Carefully he picked her up bridal style and took her to his room since it was the closest. He gently laid her down on his bed and started to make preparations to sleep on the floor. "Stay with me...Kirito" Eydis muttered. Kirito's face went completely red, thankfully it was dark and she couldn't see it. "Y-you sure?" Kirito nervously asked, "I don't want to see you die...not again" Eydis said. Kirito carefully made his way back to his bed and crawled in. Eydis immediately latched onto him and fell back asleep, Kirito followed shortly after.

The three days Kirito were absent will be important later, as well as the skipped floors.