Togire Togire {break/broken}

Shuri Shite {repair me}

Kazuto was home alone and, having just logged out of ALfheim, ready for lunch. He and Asuna had parted ways and promised to go back online in an hour and a half, since she had some chores to do for her parents, and Yui had said that she would wait for them in game.

  He didn't feel particularly hungry, so he settled on a chicken and lettuce sandwich, chopping it in half to make it less messy. After taking a bite, he remembered that he should probably take a drink back up to his room, since the one that was already up there was long finished. He opened the cabinet door and reached for a glass, but his hand knocked it off the shelf and it fell to the floor.

  Time froze.

  And the world rebooted as it hit the tiles, smashing into pieces and making that sound. The sound that Kazuto, no matter how much time passed, couldn't get out of his head. He fell to his knees, paying no mind to the sharp, broken glass digging mercilessly through his trousers and into his skin, drawing droplets of blood.

  Kazuto was shaking. Was his name even Kazuto? He had been called something else for so long he wasn't sure who he was anymore. Was he Kazuto Kirigaya, big brother to Suguha, studying as a programmer? Or was he Kirito, gamer extraordinaire, conqueror of Sword Art Online? He didn't know. But that sound—

  Why did everyone shatter?

  First, in his arms, sacrificing himself for a future he would never see, the proactive Diavel. He died because Kazuto—Kirito?—didn't warn him fast enough, couldn't see that Kayaba had tricked them all. Diavel broke in his arms and when that happened, a bit of him broke too.

  Next was the Moonlit Black Cats.

  Sasamaru, Tetsuo, Ducker—he didn't know them as well as the other two, but he was there when they died. They were scared, so scared, and they broke and shattered and Kirito—Kazuto?—could still hear it ringing in his ears.

  Sachi—oh, God, Sachi—she never deserved to die. None of them did, of course not, but he was closer with her than with any of the other members of the guild. And then, when he was the only one who got out of there alive and in one piece—not the many, many broken shards that the rest were now—she thanked him in her message. Why? What had he done? Killed her? Was that worth a thank you message? Kazuto—Kirito?—didn't think so.

  Keita was heartbroken and it was his fault. The guild leader was a kind man, but he wasn't so kind to Kirito—Kazuto?—when he left him to deal with his grief and the sound of his death alone.

  Kazuto—Kirito?—never knew quite why he didn't end himself there and then alongside Keita—of course he knew, because he didn't want that sound to be the last he ever heard—but he didn't, and so the shattering continued to echo in his ears.

  Then came the raid on Laughing Coffin.

  It was a bloodbath on the battlefield and the PKers were going all out to try and kill as many people as they could. Kirito—Kazuto?—knew that he had no other choice, that if he hadn't ended their lives then they would have ended his, but he could hear them breaking and shattering and disintegrating into less than the ones and zeros of everything around them. He didn't even know their names! He didn't know any of their names. He never knew who any of them were, not really. But at least he knew their SAO handles—the two Laughing Coffin members were barely even faces in his mind. He knew that they were murderers, that the game had been better off without them, but now he was a murderer too.

  Kazuto—Kirito?—would never regret his third kill. Never. Kuradeel had killed right in front of him, was going to kill him too, was going to kill Asuna—and of course, he wouldn't let that happen.

  But now there was more blood on his hands and no one else could see it.

  Every day in SAO, he heard that sound. It wouldn't go away and it took all his strength not to break along with whatever item had expired.

  The final Boss Battle was the worst. It was the worst because Asuna shattered. He shattered too, twice. Kayaba shattered, though for once, he didn't mind the sound of death.

  But he was so, so afraid that the last thing he remembered about Asuna would be the sound of shattering and a mass of broken polygons. He was unbelievably terrified that the last sound he would ever hear would be a terrible cracking, smashing, breaking noise as he was deleted from the virtual world and the real one.

  But it wasn't.

  Kirito—Kazuto?—was so relieved that he was alive, so relieved that Asuna was alive.

  And then he wasn't, because Asuna was trapped.

  He nearly broke down right there and then when he found out that she hadn't woken up. He was devastated and desperate for her to come back to the real world.

  And when he freed her from her cage, he hoped that his bars would break too, but nothing ever works out the way you want it to. Nothing is all light and no dark.

  Kazuto—Kirito?—knelt on the floor, tiny spots of dried blood from where he had fallen on shards of glass clung to his hands and trousers like the memories of SAO clung to his heart. Tears he had tried so hard not to show in front of anyone streamed down his cheeks like the non-existent blood streamed from the dead in the death game that had changed him so much. He just didn't know anymore. He hadn't known from the start.

  The faces that would become nothing more than shards of ones and zeros flashed through his mind.

  They were broken, shattered like the dropped glass.

  And so was he.