The Black Swordsman

Chapter 37: The Reunion

For the first time, in what felt like ages, my eyes opened in my bedroom, back in the real world.  I stared up at my familiar ceiling and took the Nerve Gear off of my head, slowly.  It was pitch black in my room, indicating that it was night time but that didn't tell me what day it was.  I tried to sit up straight in my bed and I was met with pain sensations all across my body, causing me to, clumsily, fall out of my bed and land on my stomach. 

Damn it, I thought to myself, realizing that pain in that VR world did have some kind of impact on my body. 

My face felt numb from where it was abused during the fight with Sugou and the rest of his guards and in all of the places where I had been struck in that world...hurt in some capacity, now.  Interestingly enough, some areas of my body hurt worse than others.  I was able to deduce that that the injuries that hurt worse were the ones that I obtained from fighting Sugou and his Elvin Knights which made sense.  He raised the pain sensitivity and I assumed that resulted in the pain in those areas being much more severe.  I didn't have time to think about any of this, any further.  I...had a promise to keep.  I had to hurry because I didn't want to keep her waiting.  Using the palms of my hands, I forced myself to stand back up by pushing myself up off of my carpet.  As soon as I was standing, I held my stomach that was aching, opened my bedroom door and forced myself out of the room. 

Suguha, I reminded myself as I saw her room, down the hall from mine.  I-I have to check on her before I leave. 

Using the wall of the hallway to hold myself up, I made my way to her room which was on my way to the front door of the house, where my destination was, anyways.  Eventually, I managed to make it to Suguha's room and as soon as I reached it, I quickly knocked on her door and I didn't even have to speak, before I got a response.

"K-Kazuto, I'm fine...my...stomach...is just hurting really bad...that's all," she called out from the other side of her door.  "G-go...go see, Asuna."

I remembered that Suguha and the rest of my friends, luckily, were taken out before Sugou raised the pain sensitivity to 100% so it made sense that their pain wouldn't have been as bad as mine...and Lisbeth's.  I'd send my other friends a text message from my phone before I left the house for Asuna to check on them just in case.

"A-are you...sure...you're, okay?" I asked. 

"Trust me, I'm fine...you have to hurry, though...I don't want...everything we went through...to be for nothing.  Please, go see Asuna."

"R-right," I finished, as I made my way towards the kitchen of my house. 

I saw my phone on the kitchen counter so I picked it up to check the time and, more importantly, the date.  It was Sunday night.  I had been inside of the Nerve Gear for a little over a day.  Luckily, Suguha's parents weren't back, yet, so I didn't have to worry them.  I placed the phone inside of my pocket and grabbed my coat, before making my way out of the house, prepared for the most brutal bike ride of my entire life. 

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After somehow biking to the hospital Asuna was at, in the cold of night, battling through pain that made the process almost unbearable, I crashed my bike right in front of the hospital.  My body rolled, painfully, onto the concrete and it was clear that my bike was badly damaged but I didn't care.  I had to ignore the new scrapes that were on my body from wiping out and keep pushing forward.  Asuna was so close.  I couldn't stop, now.  I made it back to my feet and hurried across the hospital parking lot and entered the hospital, my mind rushing with endless possibilities.

What if Sugou had lied?  What if Asuna wasn't awake?  What if she was awake and had permanent damage to her body...or her brain?  What if she was so damaged...that she couldn't even remember who she was...or who I was?  Shit, I can't be thinking of these things, right now.  She'll be fine.  She has to be.