Floor 0 - a SAO Fanfic

Chapter 5 - Kou and Lily

"You've got some explaining to do." Kyria said staring sternly at Akira.

"Yeah, I know. Here isn't the right place though. We should go somewhere else."

They stood up and walked around until they found a mostly empty cafe on the edge of town.

Akira opened the door an walked in. A bored employee stood behind a cash register and a man sat in the corner. A hat covering his face but Kyria and Akira could hear snores coming from his direction.

Akira and Kyria moved to a table farthest away from the man and worker.

"So?" Kyria prompted as they sat down. Akira just sighed.

"Where do I begin....So, Kou and I were in a guild together during the beta test. He was....he was my best friend." A sad look crossed Akira's face but he continued,"something happened in the real world." Akira paused, collecting his thoughts.

"Kou and his twin sister, Lily, were at my house and we were just hanging out watching a movie with the rest of my family. During the movie a bunch of burglars all come bursting into the house on all sides. There were guns everywhere. My parents jumped up and hid all of us behind them. The burglars they..." Tears weld up in Akira's eyes. But he quickly wiped them away.

"They shot my parents, without even a warning! Just shot them! my siblings started to cry. I am the oldest of my four siblings. I was now their protector." Kyria watched Akira in horror but he kept going, " one of the burglars walked over to me and handed me a gun. He said,'you get a choice. Shoot one of your friends and you and your siblings live, don't shoot your friend and you get to watch as we kill all of your siblings. One. By. One. Dont even think about shooting me. My men will have you and your siblings pinned down and killed before I can snap my fingers. I looked down at the gun in my hand. The light from the still playing movie glinted off it. I had a choice shoot one of my friends or my siblings die. I didn't have a phone, I couldn't call the cops. I just had to hope the security on the house was triggered, but I couldn't rely on that. I didn't even know if it was on. I had two choices. I still remember pointing the gun at Lily, hearing the shot and the thump as she fell to the ground, dead. I can still hear Kou's screams as he held his sister to him. His parents died in a car accident 5 years before this. He and his sister lived with their grandparents who could care less about the two of them. Lily was all Kou had and I shot her! I shot her, Kyria! Nightmares of it still haunt me today. Kou has every right to be angry..." Tears were flowing down Akira's face now. Kyria reached out and grabbed his hand and held it in her own.

"You didn't have a choice. It was her or your siblings, anyone would've made the same choice."

"That doesn't change the fact that it happened, that I did it."

"How did Kou end up in jail?"

"After...after I shot Lily, Kou started going mad. He started chucking things any where and everywhere. Mostly at me. One of the robbers shot him in the leg and he stopped throwing stuff. The burglar that had handed me the gun took it back and sent his men to search the house. I just sat there. Too stunned at what I had done to do anything. Then red and blue lights came through the window and we could hear sirens. The burglar ran over Kou and put the gun in his hand, Kou had passed out from pain by now. And he and his men ran away. By the time the cops got inside the burglars were gone. All they saw was Kou with the gun, his dead sister beside him, me on the floor, and my siblings huddled in the corner." Kou was arrested and my siblings and I were sent to a relative's home." Silence followed the end of Akira's story. His face was still wet with tears.

"Kou lost everything he cared about that night. His friendship with me and his sister. Both gone with the pull of a trigger." Akira said.

Kyria looked up into Akira's broken face.

"You did what anyone would do Akira. Let's go back to the inn and go to bed okay? I think you need to rest." Kyria said, standing up and pulling Akira with her. He let her pull him up and they walked back to the inn together.

Once inside, they stopped in front of Akira's room. Kyria looked up at him and saw he was still really shaken up by his retelling of his past. She put her arms around him and pulled him into a hug. They stood there for a few seconds. Then pulled apart. Kyria looked back up at Akira.

"You did the best thing you could, you know?" She said then stood up on her tip toes and kissed him on the lips. Just a quick little peck.

"Goodnight Akira" she said, then turned and walked to her own room.

"Goodnight."