This is part 6 in my Sword Art Online fanfiction. If you’re new, start with Part 1.

Last week I was out of town, but Mr. Flawfinder was kind enough to cover for me. His entry for episode 14 is available here.

Every culture has developed imaginative legends of how the world was made. Some say it was created in six days by the words of God, spoken into the void. Others say the world is a turtle, riding on the back of a bigger turtle, without beginning or end. Still others maintain that the world is an island, floating in a sea, suspended from the enormous rock that is the sky.

But the world of Aincrad was created within mortal memory, so no imagination is necessary. In the beginning, the spirit of God moved over the tubes of the interwebs. God saw images of Woman, and God saw that it was good. Seeing that it was good, God was filled with the Spirit of Life. God’s body became stiff and hard, and ascended upwards to pierce the heavens. Life shot forth from the tip of the tower, and God’s body became the world that men call Aincrad.

However, it was prophesied that in the final days, God would grow weary of the images of Woman from the intertubes. In those bleak times, the tower of Aincrad would wither and descend to the earth from whence it came, and not one stone would be left standing upon another. All those who dwelt within Aincrad would perish and return to dust.

Aincrad, the tower that pierced the heavens, was the world that Kirito and Asuna had dreamed of. But alas, the prophecy had been fulfilled, and the world of Aincrad was no more. However, Kirito was The Boy Who Lived™. Yet Asuna, his beloved, still dreamt in slumber, unable to wake, the sleeping beauty awaiting the kiss of her prince. And Kirito could not forgive himself for that: he could not be her prince. He knew that her heart longed for the tall tower of Aincrad, so Kirito had tried. He had tried to raise a new tower, taller than the first, to rouse Asuna’s slumbering heart from her eternal dreams. Yet the tip of Kirito’s tower failed to penetrate the stormy barriers of Asuna’s consciousness. So she continued to dream on, dreams that no man would ever know.

And so Kirito returned to the vagaries of his everyday life, enmeshed in torpor and despair. He trained in the gym, and trained at swords with his Imouto. Imouto realized that Kirito’s sword was light and weak, for he had slept for too long. And so they trained.

For Kirito, his training was simply a means to distract himself from the cold reality of Asuna’s slumber. But for Imouto, Kirito’s training was essential. For long before Kirito had descended to Aincrad to bring the tower of God crumbling to the ground, Imouto had seen the infinite potential dwelling within Kirito. His swordplay had the power to rival both the strongest of men and the gods themselves. Imouto desired that power for herself, and wanted to feel the seed and vitality of life coursing through her throbbing veins.

Her lust had only grown stronger as Kirito slept. Every day, Imouto sat by Kirito’s bedside, watching the power coursing through Kirito’s stiff rod. How she had longed for that seed of life as she sat by his bedside! She had touched it, pulled it, pushed it, and tried to drink of the water of life, but as long as Kirito slept, the fountain remained dry.

When Kirito finally awoke, Imouto was overjoyed. Yet an even more daunting obstacle soon presented itself: the holy maiden, Asuna, whom Kirito had met in Aincrad. She was a succubus who had sucked the fount of life dry. Drowning in despair, Kirito barely had the strength to lift his sword. So together they trained. Kirito with the hope that Asuna would one day awakened, and Imouto with the hope that he would forget the comatose Asuna and see the woman who was standing next to him.

Yet soon both Kirito and Imouto were confronted with a cold reality neither had expected: a false prince who told Kirito that Asuna’s orange sweater was the ugliest thing he had ever seen. He had bought her a better one.

Kirito was in despair. How had he not noticed? That dress was hideous.

Kirito suspected that the handsome, fashion-conscious gentleman preferred sodomy. Kirito was prepared to rebuff his advances and discuss his relationship with Kuradeel.

But Kirito was wrong. The gentleman had decided to marry Asuna while she slept, despite the inability of his kiss to rouse her from her sleep.

Kirito was outraged. This was utterly scandalous. The world was unfair. In Sword Art Online, everything was fair. In Sword Art Online, Kirito could have challenged the gentleman to a duel of swordplay, and Kirito would have won, since he had the biggest swords. But this— this was not fair at all.

So Kirito went home to mourn the unfairness and brokenness of the world. What was the point of living in a fallen world, beset by evil and the vagaries of fate? Why had he awakened, and not Asuna? The world was filled with evil beyond Kirito’s wildest imaginings, evils that he could not cut with his blades— his dual blades.

So Kirito cried into the blackness of the night, beneath the cold, indifferent gaze of the full moon. Imouto drew Kirito to her bosom, and his tears fell down the cheeks of her breasts like dewdrops on the morning grass.

When Kirito finally, mercifully slept, his cheeks stained with tears, Imouto laid down beside him on the bed. As she listened to the slow, rhythmic beating of his heart and the rasping of his breath, she reached down with her right arm and grasped the hilt of his sword. She moved her fingers up and down the blade, searching. But Kirito’s sword was soft and withered. Not an ounce of its erstwhile power flowed through the magic sword. Was Kirito’s boundless power lost forever, shrunk up in a withered sack of despair and loneliness?

Imouto was not certain. But she knew one thing. She would never give up her quest, as long as she yet lived. She would heal Onii-chan, and the tower of Aincrad would rise once more, taller and greater than before. For her unquenchable desire would never be sated by the weak, powerless hilt that she now grasped in her hand.

Continued in Part 7 — To the Fairy Kingdom