SAO drabbles ~

Yours, now, forever & always | Kirito x Asuna

KIRITO'S POV:

The moonlight bleeds through the cracks of the window, my new blinds from Suguha, failing at their only purpose.

Asuna lays beside me, her body, warm, pressed up against mine. The way she feels in real life compared to the virtual world is the reason I'm glad to be alive.

Her skin rubs against mine creating an otherwordly static between us, her breaths mixing with the soft spoken mewls of my name.

"Kirito..."

She tosses and turns beside me, her face going from at peace in slumber to dispair. I'm immediately alerted, shaking her softly. Her whimpers, like knives to my chest, a pain not even Johnny Black could cause me.

Her chestnut hair lays still against the motion of my hands gently trying to wake her.

"Asuna, Asuna, hey, it's Kirito...you're having a bad dream...Asuna..."

No answer. I'm watching her whimpers get louder and louder, her limbs shake as she's nestled between my arms and chest. She stirs, her whimpers, now cries, reaching for something?

The way she groans, trying to move her lips against the pain she's in makes one thing clear.

I've seen her make this face before. Back in the station, a year ago. Atsushi Kanamoto...better known asJohnny Black, was the last known survivor of The Laughing Coffin guild from Aincrad, the one Asuna and I thought we defeated long ago.

Around this time last year, I was walking Asuna home. There was a man asking her for directions. It was Johnny Black, in the flesh, hellbent on revenge targeted directly at Asuna.

I couldn't just stand there, so I didn't. I pushed Asuna behind me, told her to run.

She refused to leave me. As soon as I blinked, Atusushi attacked me in the open.

I used what I had on hand, an umbrella as a sword. Thinking back on things, it didn't make the greatest weapon at the time. The point was too blunt, withered, only straight enough to bruise him, which it did.

Still, he had the Death Gun. Against my umbrella, the fate of the battle had already been decided.

I fell to the floor, motionless. Asuna ran to me, cradled me in her arms. The world started fading. I heard her cries, her begs, her sanity breaking, but the more I tried to stay, I had kept slipping.

After the events of Alicization, I returned to my life as I know it, forever changed.

If only it could have just been me and myself alone. Asuna held me as the ambulance came. It didn't make any difference. The women I love was left holding my cold body in her arms.

There's no excuse for that. Words, actions, therapy, nothing can ever undo that night.

Asuna may have avoided getting hurt physically, but mentally, she was destroyed beyond comprehension.

To this day I struggle to imagine what she must have thought as she begged me to stay with her.

To stay alive...

Was it like when her close comrade and friend Yuki died in her arms?

Was it more like that one time in SAO when she thought she nearly lost me after Kuradeel plummited a sword to my knee in a surprise attempt to log me out of the game permanently?

Or...was it like a nightmare, where waking up the next day wasn't even a comprehensible thought if I was not there?

A month ago last year, Asuna's memories of SAO were stolen without her consent. This was an attempt by Eiji Nochizawa, who went by the I.D Nautilus back in Aincrad. He wanted to eradicate his memories of the death game to forget the girl he lost. He didn't think about what lied opposite the pain for others.