Sword Art Online: Faithful Hymn

Chapter 9: High Hopes

After a beautiful night's rest, Shoji slowly opens his eyes. He had a sweet, sweet dream this night. He was dreaming about the fact that he and Yuuna's father created an AI, who resembled Yuuna in behavior and appearance. At the day Shoji and Yuna met for the first time, he was tasked with teaching Yuna anything that the teenager's life is about. He did so, by relaxing in his home, watching TV like the usual teenager of his age does. They also went to Shoji's basketball training, as well as sleeping together in the same bed! Since Yuna doesn't fully understand the theme of love yet, she has no idea that it would be pretty strange to sleep with someone in the same bed, especially if they are the same age.

Shoji recalls his dream, before grabbing his phone from his nightstand to look what time it is. A tiny bit of sunlight could already be seen coming from behind the curtains of his room, so Shoji is hoping that he hasn't overslept yet. Although when he checked his phone, he could see that it currently is 8 AM. School starts at 8:45 AM for the boy, so he really should hurry. Before he pushes that cover his body off of himself, he realizes that he called himself sick yesterday. Although, he thinks that way. Didn't he do that in his dream?

While in confusion, the boy puts the phone back to where it was laying, and turns his body around to think more properly without getting distracted by his phone. Once he turned around though, he could see someone's face laying exactly next to him. Due to shock, Shoji screams and quickly jumps, and falls, out of his bed. With Shoji sitting on the ground, looking terrified at the person laying with him in bed, he can't help it but to think about the dream he had. After a couple of seconds, he realizes.

It wasn't just a dream. It was a dream that came true.

It seems that Yuna didn't wake up by Shoji's sudden movements and sound he made. It appears that she's still out like a light. In order to not let Yuna get a strange feeling about the boy, he lays himself next to her again, back under his sheets. The boy slowly moved himself towards the white haired idol, who still hadn't noticed him. He then moves his hand from under his sheets, gently touching her nose. This seemingly happened to awake her from her 'sleep mode', since the first thing she does is to open her eyes slowly, before staring into Shoji's eyes with her beautiful ruby red eyes.

'Mhmm, Sho..ji..?', says Yuna to Shoji while she is still slowly but surely waking up. 'How did you sleep?', she asks. While Shoji is thinking of a proper answer to his beloved friend, Yuna attempts to sit on his bed while dragging the bed sheets do her to cover her body.

"I've slept like baby! To be fair, I thought that our entire meeting and all events from yesterday were all just a dream. I'm so glad that isn't the case!", Shoji responds to Yuna whilst being oh so happy that it all was real. Yuna closes her eyes, smiling at the boy in the process. That his meeting with Yuna wasn't a dream, also means that he indeed has school today. And as far as Shoji can recall, Yuna once would like to attend school. Whether she would like it or not, it's something she desires, something that might help her development in becoming a full-fledged teenage AI.

"Say, Yuna, would you like to go to school today wi...". Before Shoji could finish his sentence, Yuna already interrupted the boy, enthusiastically responding: "Yes, definitely!".

It appears that Yuna hasn't forgotten her request to Shoji that she would like to attend school once. He's glad that she still wants to go, because else he wouldn't know whether he would be bored out of his mind or not. Today's school schedule isn't anything special. Yuna then suddenly gets out of Shoji's bed, revealing her beauty in her underwear once more. It seems that Yuna's chest indeed is relatively big, just like Shoji concluded yesterday when he pressed himself against Yuna in her sleep. He should feel guilty about his daring act yesterday, yet he has the feeling it wouldn't mind Yuna. Once Yuna makes her strange finger movements, which Shoji still seems to recognize from somewhere, he interrupts the girl since he assumes she would change to her usual attire again.

"By the way, do you have any other clothing that you could wear at school? A scholar outfit maybe?", asks Shoji to the girl. The reason for him asking it in a serious tone, is because school uniforms are mandatory at Shoji's school, the SAO Survivor School.

"I'm not sure. I can take a quick peek though. If I wear anything that you think is fitting, give me the call okay?". Yuna then gets to work. With a few taps and swipes with her fingers, her crimson red underwear gets replaced by a rather unusual outfit. After taking a good look at it, it appears that Yuna just changed into a chef's outfit!

"A chef's outfit? Where would you need that for?", asks Shoji quite curiously. "Got no idea, it was in my inventory by default! Maybe I secretly got good cooking skills? Anyway, let's look further". Even though Yuna looks rather cute and still beautiful in her chef's costume, it really wouldn't be fitting for school today. As she said herself, she continues to browse through her outfits. The next one she selected, was crazy on a whole new level though!

"What the... What is this? I can't even see properly!", shouts Yuna from the costume she is currently wearing. Shoji however has to laugh an incredible lot, since Yuna not is dressed as a pink flamingo! "You can definitely serve as our rugby mascot!", responds Shoji to Yuna whilst still in laughter. Yuna looks at her arms, who are showed to her as an arm filled with pink fur. Without saying anything besides "...Next", she then quickly selects another outfit. "Please, don't let this outfit be stupid..", Yuna prays. The next outfit that gets its reveal, is something that Shoji can't help but to stare at it. It took a moment for Yuna to realize what she had on this time, however she seemed quite satisfied with it.

"Holy mother of..", says Shoji slowly while he looks at Yuna with his mouth wide open. "...Do you think that this outfit would be fitting for your school?". The outfit that Yuna currently has equipped, was a beautiful looking black dress, with a couple of red roses attached to it. Her chest greatly stands out in her dress, which also impressed Shoji a lot. With Shoji's senses finally returning to normal, he responds in a normal tone. "No, but you are very welcome to wear it anywhere else..". Yuna does not really understand what Shoji means with that answer, but the thing that she does know is that it wouldn't be fitting for school. With that in mind, she switches to another outfit once again. The next outfit that Yuna gets to try out, is something that appears to be a valid outfit.

"I got a great feeling about this one, what do you think Shoji?". And right Yuna is. This seems like a valid school outfit, even though it isn't the right color. In comparison to Shoji's blue outfit and red tie, Yuna's outfit appears to be dark red. In exchange for the tie Shoji would wear, Yuna wears a white bow tie that greatly matches her school uniform.

"Yup, this is a great uniform! You're all ready to go, except that you got no books or something like that. Don't worry though, we can sit next to each other while we study." This also made sense to Yuna, who strongly agrees with Shoji. The two make preparations for school, including breakfast, making themselves up and taking a quick shower. Just like Shoji thought, Yuna didn't recommend to shower together. It's known to him that Yuna has limits regarding affection and love related things, but it didn't surprise him that Yuna knows what really doesn't seem appropriate. After all the preparations are done, Shoji grabs his bike, letting Yuna sit behind him on his luggage carrier, and just like that they lift off to school.

Each time Shoji heads for the SAO Survivor School, he gets these memories of past events. Sometimes they are very satisfying, but most of the time they make the young lad tremble. Images of Yuuna's body, shattering on his knees as he can't do anything but watch her die in his arms. Those are the images that usually occur to him. There's almost never an occasion where something positive comes to mind. With Yuna on his side however, things ought to change.

And also, this time around, they sure did change..