"I'm right here, Asuna" | Kirito x Asuna

chapter five

"Suguha...did she say anything else after you...egged her on?..."

Kazuto Kirigaya was sat on a sofa in his fiance's house in a spare room.

His sister nods. 

"What else did she say?"

Suguha gulps nervously take a deep breath, then proceeded to quote what Asuna had said to her.

"Asuna said something about her diary entries that deliberately stopped at the end of the Ordinal Scale incident." 

Kazuto motivates his sister to continue further into the quote. "...because?'

Suguha continues. "...because, she said after everything that happened regarding A-Alicization...-

Kazuto's eyes widen after he hears that name. "A-Alicization?..."

Suguha nods. " she then told me she didn't write because, to her,  you were 'gone'..."

Kazuto instantly stands up from the sofa.

Suguha watches, confused. "K-Kazuto?"

He runs his hands through his hair once more, his eyes widening further with more realization of what Asuna would be crying, no-, he had already realized what she was crying about. He finally caught on.

Asuna has cried in the past, about many things... since she's only human like him, she also cries whenever she's sad. Whenever she needs to cry...she does.

When she does cry, he's there to comfort her mostly.

It's the same if he cries, she would be there to comfort him.

Kazuto pinpointed and put two and two together, muttering things under his breath.  Suguha watched in confusion and concern as he did so.

Asuna did have days where she would be upset. Kazuto understood now that her breakdown from earlier had a deeper meaning... a deeper understanding.

She cried in his arms, longing for him... it was probably that Asuna had had another nightmare of when Kazuto was still stuck and fighting for his life in a virtual world that was connected through a soul transmitter, which he stayed there for three years..in a coma-like death state. Generally, he was able to return to the real world...to his friends and family and...to return to her. 

Her nightmare must have triggered her mood, every moment she could have been thinking what if he has to go back at some point?... she could not bear the separation, not even the thought of separation... 3 years was enough separation for her.... she did not want to think of what ifs.

While Suguha was reading her diary, Asuna's sad sighs were there because of Asuna being lost in her own fear.... not wanting to hear about her good memories, because of what happens to kazuto not long after... everything reminded her of the day she nearly lost him.

Kazuto knew this.

He couldn't stop beating himself up about it ever since he got back into the real world.

Asuna's counselor also could not reach into to Asuna's mind.

Only Kazuto can, which he did without knowing.

After all, on the day she nearly lost him, before he got attacked by someone and got a poisonous chemical injected into his body, in order to protect the one he loves, he told her to run and get help. She hesitated but followed his orders. 

When she turned around, she saw him get stabbed... since that day, four years after, she wishes that she didn't run away, if she did not run away, maybe the two of them could have taken on the dangerous man themselves together... maybe she would have never lost  Kazuto for 3 years...maybe, just maybe... she couldn't help but blame myself for the duration of 3 years and she still blames herself to this day. Asuna did all she could to see him again, waiting by his lifeless body behind a screen for two years, that was nothing to her. Reuniting with him by spending a few months jumping into yet another death game, risking every inch of her known being to just see him once more and hold him, she never regretted that, or in fact, anything she had done.

Asuna did it all for him. 

Anything and everything in her power was done...to bring Kazuto back home...

To bring him back to her. 

She deemed this part of her life as 'the Alicization incident.'  When talking about it or writing about it, that is what she called it. 

Kazuto quickly ran to the room that Asuna was sleeping in.

 As he ran to the room, he throws himself onto Asuna and hugs her tightly.

The couple shares a long-awaited, much needed tight embrace. They both softly cry together.

Kazuto whimpers while hugging his fiancee tightly.

"I'm sorry..I'm s-so sorry... you felt alone because of me...all that time y-you waited for me...A-Asuna...I'm sorry..."

She soothes him by stroking his hair.

She replies to him in a soft voice. 

"It's alright...you're back home Kirito...it's all over...you're finally back, where you belong...it was worth all the struggle and pain, because, you're home."

They both look at one another.

"...I'm home...Asuna..." 

They wipe each other's tears.

"Welcome home Kirito..." 

"Asuna..." 

Kazuto pulls Asuna's face close to him. 

Both lean in for a kiss. 

Their lips interlock passionately.

No words are needed.

They had longed each other all these years.

Finally, they both felt at peace, they both realized at that moment, within a kiss that bounded their existences together, that they both...had finally and truly returned back to the real world.