Sword Art Online: Regeneration (Uprising)

Prologue 3:

     The next day I got ready for school. I wore my usual clothes, I had a small bag of all of school books and water skin. Mom gives me a basket, in it, last night's dinner, still smelling great.

    "That's for you and Raito. I don't want you having it all to yourself." She joked.

     "I won't!" I protested, "Besides it's too much for me to eat all on my own." I look inside the bask and she smacks my hand, "Argh.."

"That doesn't get to Raito, you're gonna get it." She threatened. She sees my terrified expression and laughs graciously and pats my head, "Alright, off you go! Take care."

I wandered down the mountain and walk to school, a bag behind my back and a basket with the aroma of mouth watering food. I would usually meet up with Raito on the way there. Schooling in Parvus would start at the age of eight. A child at home must already know the alphabets, simple reading and numbers and basic adding and subtracting. Once you complete your schooling (at around fourteen), you find work and live your life. Being eleven meant we would have three more years until we would start really work. And like usual, boys would go and work while girls would help mothers at home. But there were some exceptions to that case. A girl would have to be an orphan to be deemed fit to work at least or coming from somewhere really poor.

That was Raito and hundreds more girl orphans that help families out. Yuuki and Yui would have to inevitably work along with me and sell firewood until they would marry someone which is not anytime soon.

The school was pretty small. A rickety old wooden shack they just called a school. There were roughly twenty of them scattered around town, each school having three classes, morning, noon and dusk. The older children had the dusk classes while younger ones had earlier starts. Each class have on average thirty students. We had thirty five students.

I went in and sat at the very back of class, beside my friend, Raito. She was not present yet. She must be doing some chores at the orphanage before heading here.

The set up of the classroom shack was that two students would sit by a table together. These desks that we had were more olden pews that the church would give up to schools. The desks were made of ply, wood even thinner than firewood.

The teacher, Sister Carole, walked in. All of the students scramble back to their seats. The old clock rang and there was no Raito around. I was worried about it since she would never miss school.

We greeted the Sister good morning and took our seats. She was doing role call until she saw the chair beside me was empty.

"Atsuo, dear." The Sister Carole began, "Is Raito not coming? Is she sick?"

I shook my head and shrug, "I'm sorry but I didn't see her today, I'm not entirely sure if she's coming."

"Guess that freak managed to come to her senses." A student commented. The class giggles but Sister Carole shuts them up.

"Marcus, watch that mouth of yours." She warned him and he puffs his stupid cheeks.

Marcus was this tall boy tanned boy that picked on everyone. His family were on the richer side. He was only here since this was the only school closest to his place. I despised him. He didn't have to do work since he was wealthy enough not to. There was this law in Parvus that allowed people with a certain amount of money to avoid work. Richer you were, the higher chance you wouldn't have to work.

"Raito isn't a freak." I squeaked at him.

"Atsuo, do you love her?" Marcus sneered

"Marcus!" The teacher furiously spat.