Chapter Text
It was a beautiful morning, with the digital sun shining brightly in the virtual sky. The floor was peaceful, isolated even. Almost as if they were on a deserted island miles away from the cares of civilization. Most players on the floor were engaged in leisure activities like fishing or boating. Two particular newly weds were doing the same, taking a walk through the woods around their cabin, but a melancholy mood hung over them.
Kirito and Asuna didn't need to ask each other to know what they were both thinking about. Recent events hung too heavy on their minds to think about much else. A short squeeze of their joined hands and a companionable silence were their comfort to one another.
Asuna looked up at the sky through the branches. The gentle wind in her hair, the dappled sunlight on her face, it felt almost real. Just like Yui. So what if she was an AI? She was real too, as was Asuna's love for her.
Asuna looked over at her husband, who noticed and looked back. Kirito. She admired his gentle, empathetic smile, his dark eyes, his jet-black hair... And saw a hue in the forest behind him that had no business being there. Red. Blood?
The swordswoman tensed and assumed a defensive stance, motioning to the swordsman with her eyes as she equipped her sword from their inventory. Soon, the two of them were creeping forward to investigate.
Asuna had a realization just before they breached the treeline to enter the suspect area. This was Sword Art Online. There was no blood.
The pair halted just outside a small clearing. It was a nice spot. The ground was carpeted with soft grass, a light breeze was blowing, and there was enough sunlight flowing down that morning dew (had there been any) would have sparkled in it. It could have been the perfect spot for a picnic if it weren't for the strange man lying in a hammock stretched between two trees, the source of the mysterious color.
Asuna felt the hair on the back of her neck rise as she examined the man. Something was... off about him. She wasn't sure what. He was a young man, honestly the target audience for such a game, and he was certainly pale and thin enough to pass as a gamer. He was a foreigner, but not the only one playing the game. His eye-catching clothes looked expensive but not unusual. The blood red hair that had attracted her attention was unusual, but people sport blue, red, and pink locks thanks to in-game and real-life hair dye.
...The color cursor. While examining that blood-red hair, Asuna registered that the man had no color cursor above his head.
How strange would that be? Every entity in SAO had a cursor above it. Monsters had varying shades of red based on strength. Most NPCs and players were green, though players on the wrong side of the law turned orange. Red, orange, yellow, green, black. As long as it moved, it had a cursor. The only exception either of them had seen... was Yui.
Asuna caught her husband's eyes, and she saw that he had the same thought.
"Do you think he could be...?"
Kirito responded to her whisper with a shake of his head, an expression on his face that denoted indecision rather than disagreement.
"It's rude to stare."
The teens flinched, and the mysterious man opened his eyes. The reddish-brown gaze locked onto their swords, and the man sighed and dragged a hand down his face without rising from his spot.
"What is it with kids these days and pointing weapons at innocent strangers? I mean no harm, so could you put those down?"
His voice was quiet, weary, and annoyed, but not unkind. In fact, it was... gentle, and oddly reassuring. Kirito rested his hand on Asuna's shoulder and nodded, and both swords were soon in the couple's shared inventory.
Two players pushed past the last bush to enter the clearing. If not for her enhanced hearing, Asuna wouldn't have heard what the red-head muttered to himself as he sat up to greet his visitors.
"Japanese, huh? And this definitely isn't where I fell asleep. Sigh, that !@?& God of Death…"
Foreigner though he may be, there was no way he could go two years in this death trap without knowing what language they all speak. Whoever or whatever this man was, he was growing more suspicious by the second.
Cale was not, in fact, having a good day. After spending three days stuck on an island in the middle of nowhere, he had hoped to go home. Instead, he woke up in a different hammock in a different forest and met different strangers who used sharp objects to greet him. Fantastic.
Was he even on Earth this time? Sure, he had heard the girl speak to her companion in Japanese (and had in turn used it to greet her), but they were wearing strange clothing, carrying around swords, and apparently using magic to store objects. It was far too green and un-destroyed to be post-apocalypse, but people didn't have abilities before then. Besides, these kids...
If he had to guess, Cale would have placed the two teenagers around Lock's age. Too mature to call themselves children, but far too young to act as vigilant and battle-worn as they did. Cale frowned.
The stranger was frowning. Why? Did they do something wrong? He had called them out on being rude for staring.
Asuna grabbed Kirito's hand and continued to face the redhead. Breath in. Breath out.
"U-um, hi. Who are you?"
The frown dropped from the man's face, returning to the stoic expression they'd seen before.
"I'm Cale. And you are?"
Asuna flushed and quickly bowed her head. Kirito bowed by her side and introduced them both.
"My name is Kirito, and this is my wife Asuna."
The man, Cale, raised an eyebrow at that, but he let them continue.
"We live in a cabin nearby, but we've never seen you around here. Asuna and I were wondering-" Kirito seemed to be struggling to find a polite way to put it, but he settled with "what you are."
Cale blinked.
"What I am?"
"Yes."
"As in? Like, am I human?"
The two nodded.
"Obviously yes."
Asuna was halfway through a sigh of relief when he continued.
"I'm not an elf, or anything. Definitely not a dragon. Don't know why people keep asking that."
An elf? Was there such a character type in the game? Asuna looked to Kirito to ask, but Cale steamrolled forward.
"I thought you were going to ask whether I was a mage or something. I don't have a sword, to be sure. Now that I think about it, are the two of you magic swordsmen? It looks like you can use spatial magic, and I've heard that's a rather advanced technique. Good job, then, learning it at your ages."
The redhead nodded in approval.
...Maybe he really was an NPC.
"Magic? I don't, I'm pretty sure that Sword Art Online doesn't have magic?"
The confusion on Kirito's face mirrored Asuna's own. Cale's face paled.
"Sword Art- what? Is this a video game!?"
The couple stood bewildered as the man rose to examine the surroundings more closely. He pulled on the ropes, brushed his hand down a tree, and stared at the confused people in front of him. The moment the color cursors appeared in his sight was visible; his eyes widened, and he seemingly gave up and fell back onto the hammock.
"A video game. Great. Japan. Earth, probably. NPC? Maybe. Do I count? Who knows. Ask the God of Death. I give up."
"..."
That was an abrupt end to the conversation.
If he was from another world, then he definitely wasn't a player. An NPC wouldn't realize that he was in a video game, but an AI would have known it from the beginning. In short, Cale Henituse made no sense.
"Are you really from-"
"Nope. Not doing this again. I just spent the last few days convincing those Americans that I really am from a fantasy dimension. I'm not doing it here. Go away, and I'll probably disappear eventually."
Kirito and Asuna, curious though they were, could tell the man was in a bad mood, so they headed home (their morning walk ruined) with plans to return when Cale was in a better mood.
Cale stared at the sky, the sound of the intruders leaving the clearing playing in the background. It was a nice sky, he decided. Good graphics.
If this place was a video game, it was probably a virtual reality one. He must be in the future, then. Was it after the world had recovered from the apocalypse? Or did the world never end in this timeline?
-Cale? Where did you end up this time?
Glutton's voice in his head helped him calm down, but...
Cale sat up. If this place was a video game, would his ancient powers even work? They're pure nature. They worked in the illusions, but he hypothesized those as other worlds. A digital environment should be the opposite of nature.
The red-haired commander started his experiments with the shield.
Shiiing
The shield appeared, but there was no response when he reached out to the trees. Cale generated a breeze. He could make wind, but he couldn't control any that was already there. He was sensing a pattern.
The Vitality of the Heart and Dominating Aura had no restrictions. He could summon the shield, the Fire of Destruction, and Sound of the Wind. He could do basically nothing with the Super Rock and Sky-Eating Water. Was it a problem?
Cale pondered this as he absent-mindedly floated a leaf up and down with the wind. There was no reason for him to fight anyone here, and he didn't even plan to be in this Sword Art Online nonsense any longer than necessary. It should be fine.
Back in their cabin, Kirito and Asuna discussed the situation.
"He doesn't seem dangerous, Kirito. I think we should talk to him!"
"And then what? He obviously did not want to talk to us, and he said he'll probably disappear soon."
"Even more reason to talk to him now!"
Kirito tilted his head.
"Sweetie, we'll have to go back to the front lines any day now. Let's have this adventure while we can!"
Asuna managed to drag the unwilling Black Swordsman back to the clearing in the woods with her less than an hour after they left. Activating stealth skills, they were able to approach unnoticed and see what the redhead did while they were away. The other-worlder was sitting cross-legged on the grass a few feet from his hammock and playing with a leaf by somehow summoning wind, and on the ground nearby...
"Are those... scorch marks?"
The reddish-brown gaze snapped towards the intruders, and a gust of wind strong enough to knock a bird out of flight made him lose the bouncing bit of foliage.
"Ah." He blinked out of his thoughts. "You guys." Asuna was relieved to see that the man had calmed down from his freak-out, but even as she dragged her spouse out from their bush-lurking spot, she couldn't help but dwell on the wind and fire the man could call.
"I'd offer you a chair, but..." Cale gestured to the empty clearing, and the swordsmen sat on the ground in front of him. "Sorry about earlier. You could say I've been having a rough week." And who could argue with him? The redhead looked pale and tired enough to pass as a deathbed patient without makeup.
"It's not a problem at all, sir. We apologize for bothering you." Asuna, as the one who wanted to come in the first place, took the initiative to question him. "We were just curious. You said something about another world? And magic?"
Cale nodded and rattled off an introduction that sounded memorized. "The name's Cale Henituse, eldest son of Duke Deruth Henituse. I hale from the Roan Kingdom on the Western Continent in the dimension Nameless 1. I'm probably here because of the God of Death; he's the only one who's tossed me into the wrong world before that isn't currently sealed in a book. I'll make it back sooner or later, or my children will probably threaten to burn down the guy's temples. And yes," he added "we have magic in my dimension."
Kirito jumped in while Asuna was still processing words like "Duke", "God of Death", and "children".
"Is that what you were doing before? With the wind and the leaf?"
Cale's mouth twitched into a very faint smile, like he was proud of them for getting a right answer, but his words said otherwise.
"Technically, no. That and the fire that caused the scorch marks you noticed earlier are something called ancient powers, basically superpowers that directly control nature given to me by ghosts who owned them millennia ago. Ta-da!"
He summoned his shield, this time to show it off rather than to mock. Kirito blinked at the bright, holy silver light that appeared in front of them and his hand subconsciously moved to touch it. It was beautiful.
Asuna had latched onto another word, though.
"G-g-ghosts?" Her hazel eyes darted around the clearing in search of spooks, and she instinctively started to curl in on herself.
Cale waved his hand dismissively, dismissing the shield and leaving Kirito blinking, and reassured the girl.
"Friendly ghosts, kid. The spirits of some people who saved the world way back when. Plus," he added as an afterthought, "no one else can hear them except me, so they won't bother you."
Asuna took a deep, calming breath. There was something about this man that she couldn't help but trust.
"What time is it anyway?" Cale tilted his head back to look at the sun. "Shouldn't you kids be logging out and heading home by now? Your parents'll be worried about you."
Kirito snapped out of his daze and exchanged a look with Asuna. She nudged him, and the silent conversation came to a conclusion.
"Ahem," Kirito began. "You see, about that-"
Kirito never managed to explain what "that" was about, for Cale's body began flickering in and out of existence at that second.
"Oh." Cale looked at his hands, turning them over to watch the opacity bleed away. "That was faster than last time. Well, I'd love to stay and chat kids, but some piece of-" he looked back at his audience and remembered his kids' vocabulary. "... garbage. Some piece of garbage doesn't give me an option to stay or go. Nice meeting you! Good luck with the video game and all that!"
The red-haired man gave a last wave, and Asuna and Kirito were alone in the clearing. The only evidence of today's strange encounter was the hammock still swaying in the evening breeze.
"That was close."
The God of Death wiped away the sweat on his forehead as he sat at his desk in his office.
Cale Henituse. The God of Death needed him out of his own dimension for a time, but that last one was risky. If he'd stayed any longer, the Commander would have heard about the predicament those kids were in; he was already showing signs of getting attached, and the God of Death wasn't confident he could deal with Cale's wrath if he was pulled out after deciding to save the world again.
"Sigh... Why is life so hard?"