SAO drabbles ~

The return of my Goddess | PART 2 | Alternative Alicization Arc | Kirito x Asuna

⚠️ TW: The following story contains depictions of self-harm and gory imagery⚠️

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Asuna's POV

[One hour before awakening]

Is this the end?

Have I really lost all my strength?

I...I still...n...need to s...save-

The darkness makes its presence known as I remain still. I watch from above as a body lays submerged by a void of bareness, emptiness. I fail to recognise the person who it belongs to. Trying to approach the body from where I float only drags the body further out of reach.

Who...who am I?

Pondering the environment I find myself in while watching as the unknown body lays flat, I stay in silence. I feel no emotions, no strength, as if I am one with the void before me. Blinking, I find myself looking from a more closer direction. It feels that my mind remains separate from the body even if I am already absorbed within the body.

Is this...my soul?

Sudden visions flash through the vision belonging to the body of a person with black hair but an unrecognisable face, then this body's hand holding that person's hand. The face is covered in pixels which overlay and glitch the face. 

As a sharp pain twinges at the chest of the body, more visions of that same person flash in front of me. Their voice is distorted and still...there is a familiar warmth that remains within me, the soul, desiring to be able to discern the face and voice of this person with a longing and desperation. 

A piercing ringing slices through the air, making the body wince and cover them only for the ears to begin bleeding. Another vision, now projected onto the darkness. Crimson liquid covering the hands belonging to this body, clenching and grasping tightly onto-

Alice... 

Instantly memories begin flooding back. More screens appear with focus on the young Integrity Knight, smiling, laughing, duelling, celebrating, fighting, living, breathing, being present, alive, alive, alive, alive!

The realisation hits me like a wound to my heart. This is my body. These are my hands. 

The void screen takes me back to Alice on the citadel floor, bleeding out, as the other half of her body is missing, courtesy of  Quinella, the Supreme Priest of the church. I'm shaking while holding onto Alice, reaching out to try and heal her to no avail. While her golden eyes remain fixed on mine, I look downwards at the stained hands of mine. In desperation, fearing the end for Alice, I embrace her remaining upper body within my arms, the tightest I've ever done so. Eugeo kneels down beside her body, whispering to her how he remembers her and their childhood together and how us three collected flowers and went on adventures. Alice's tears mix in with the blood beneath her as she strokes Eugeo's cheek softly and whispers something to him which only he can hear as I'm trying my best to not break down.

Alice nods at me with the warmest gaze as her eyes begin closing, to which my embrace grows tighter, as I grip her own source of life within my hands. She begins coughing up blood while leaning on my chest. My chest begins emmiting a sharp pain as my memories trail back to my dearest friend Yuki, who also fell to eternal rest in my arms. As my arms continue shaking and the tears stream down my pale cheeks, Alice whispers to me in her last moments. 

"Stay strong, A...suna."

I'm back at the citadel, in that moment. The lifeless torso of my friend lay void of all life. I watch in horror as her lips whisper over and over the same phrase as the last words she said before parting with the world. Like a twisted record, over and over, her voice echoes to the core of my being. I cover my ears, trying to block out the sound, only to find Eugeo holding my wrists away from my face. I wince as Alice's voice becomes the only sound I hear. Her dead body continues speaking. Eugeo's face slowly contorts into Alice's and repeats the phrase. A golden sword appears in front of my blood covered knees delivering the same whisper. The walls surrounding me transmorph into Alice's facial structure slowly, her forming bones, slowly being covered in flesh made up of cement engraving itself through twisted shapes until all I can see is Alice wherever I look.