S.A.O Project Alicization - OC/Male Reader Insert

Project Alicization ----- Chapter Ten

It was the first nickname she'd had in five years. Shino couldn't help but smile as she got to her feet.

"Hi, Asuna."

Asuna Yuuki strode across the natural wood floor so that they could clasp hands and share in the delight of reunion. They sat down in adjacent chairs, and Kazuto asked in surprise, "When did you two get to be so close?"

"Oh, I stayed at Asuna's house last month."

"Wh-what? Even I've never been to her house."

"And whose fault is that?" Asuna chided, fixing Kazuto with a glare. "Who keeps claiming he needs more time before he's ready?"

His response was to sulk and sip at his drink. Still, Asuna smiled at him with kindly understanding, and when she noticed Agil approaching with water and a damp towel, she stood up to greet him.

"It's nice to see you again, Agil."

"Welcome. This reminds me of the time you two stayed upstairs at my place."

"You'd better watch out, or we'll crash your current store in Ygg City, too. Now...let's see what I want today..."

Asuna, who was old friends with the imposing-looking café owner, looked over the corkboard menu. Shino, meanwhile, peered at the phone Kazuto had left on the table. The little blue blip was fixed right on the café.

"...I think I'll go with the ginger ale, spicy," Asuna decided.

When Agil went back to the counter to get her drink, Shino smiled and said, "You guys track each other's GPS? You really must be close."

Kazuto waved his hand with a straight face to indicate the contrary. "What you see there is technically the coordinate of Asuna's phone, and she can make it invisible if she wants. Mine is nowhere near that friendly. Show her, Asuna."

"Okay," she said, and pulled her phone from the bag slung over the back of the chair, presenting it to Shino with the welcome screen activated. It was set to display a cute animated background.

In the center of the screen was a pink heart with red ribbons, pulsing regularly once a second. There were two numbers on the bottom of the heart, but she wasn't sure what they meant at first. On the left was the number 63 in a large font, while smaller and on the right was 36.2. As Shino watched curiously, the left one rose to 64.

"What is...?"

Kazuto sheepishly asked her not to stare at it. At last, she figured out what the numbers represented.

"Wait...this is your pulse and body temperature in Celsius, Kirito?"

"Bingo. You catch on quick, Shino-non," Asuna said, clapping. Shino looked back and forth from the phone to Kazuto's face a few times, then asked the first question that came to mind.

"B-but...how?"

"Under the skin, right here," Kazuto said, pointing to the center of his chest with his thumb. He reached out toward Shino and made a gap with his fingers less than a quarter of an inch wide. "There's a tiny sensor about this big stuck in there. It measures my heart rate and temperature and sends it to my phone through Bluetooth. From there it goes through the Net to Asuna's phone, giving her a real-time status update on me."

"What? A biometric sensor?" Shino squawked. Two seconds later, she wondered, "B-but why...? Oh, is it an anti-cheating system?"

"N-no, no!"

"It's not that!"

Both Kazuto and Asuna shook their heads with perfect synchronization.

"Actually, when I started my new job, the client recommended having it implanted," he explained. "It beats having to stick the electrodes to my chest each and every time I go in. When I told Asuna about it, she strongly recommended that I send her the vital data. So I put together a little app and installed it on Asuna's phone. Apparently you know who has one for his overly obsessive sister"