Chapter Text
Floor 36 - Boss: Alaz the Incomplete Ifrit
"So, there's a giant in the basement, now possessed by a vengeful god, after you beat the hell out of it, whilst it possessed Koharu, having manipulated events so as you and she both became possible hosts for it, leading to you two also gaining elemental powers?" Kirito asked, a look of complete confusion on his face at the events of the day.
A look Jet now shared when it was put like that. It did sound rather more insane when said out loud, he had to admit.
"That's the gist of it, yes." He admitted. "Oh, plus there's a machine that can produce player avatars in that room too."
"That's just great then." Kirito sighed, rubbing a hand against his forehead. "An angry god, a machine that makes copies of players and… wait, did you say something about you two having a daughter earlier?!"
He looked away sadly, and back at Koharu, who looked as if she wanted to curl up into a ball and never come out again. He didn't blame her there, especially not as she was not only dealing with losing Cassy, but also having had the personification of the element of fire in her head, puppeting her body like some kind of fucked up marionette… "Had."
"Huh?"
"The Avatar Machine produced an avatar from mine and Koharu's data. Alaz tried to possess her, but she wasn't complete enough. She's gone." He said calmly, trying to rationalise everything that had happened.
He hadn't had chance to when Koharu was under Alaz's possession - that had been the priority in that moment, but now, he had the time to process things, and rather than the sharp stabbing pain he'd felt when told about Strea, it was more of a dull, gnawing pain somewhere in his soul…
Even Kirito, dense as he may have been, seemed to pick up on the implications in what he said, and backed away from the subject. "This giant, how big are we talking about?"
"A hundred metres tall, at least, I would say. Or at least, if we go off its legs." Sanya answered. "We found one of its legs under construction, which suggests it is currently confined to the foundry."
"Small mercies." Asuna said. "I don't know how we'd fight that thing out in the open."
"Let's make sure we don't have to then." Kirito replied. "If I were the betting type, I'd say that's some kind of evolution of the Flame Shooter battle."
"It stands to reason." Rain agreed. "Similar attacks, but more powerful, and a tougher body."
Jet thought about something Alaz had said during their battle - that it was not the only puppet in this game, that they were fighting something vastly more powerful than themselves, perhaps even more so than Kayaba himself - the Administrator, whatever that was.
Whilst he doubted that thing in the base was the Administrator, he figured it was going to become important later, and so, made a note to talk about it later too.
"Jet?"
"Huh?"
"You were staring off into space."
"Oh, right. What were we on about?"
"Fighting the boss. Sanya reckons we need to take out as soon as possible, I think this is one we need the guilds to stand a chance of dealing with. Thoughts?"
"I hate to agree with Sanya, but I think we're gonna need to be able to work together like clockwork, and if this thing is like the Flame Shooter…"
He remembered the absolute shitshow that had been, and whilst it was hard to pin the blame exclusively on one thing - it had been a cocktail of failures on a lot of different parts that had led to the loss of so many people during that fight - it was hard to not assume that whilst the larger numbers would be better in case they failed, they needed to be able to work in complete harmony, and not be distracted by the inter-guild rivalries…
"Still though, just us lot isn't going to be enough, is it?" He thought aloud…
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After a few messages, the group had managed to call in some favours and gather a small number of players to help in their impromptu boss raid - those players being the guys of Fuurinkazen and of Agil's Heavy Weapons Brigade (recently renamed from the "Bro Squad"...)
"So, that's the situation." Asuna addressed them. "We'll send in a small party to gather information first, and then we will all begin the attack when we have more information about the boss. Is that clear?"
He gave Asuna a slightly sarcastic salute, but as far as plans went, it wasn't terrible - there weren't really enough moving parts in it to go wrong after all.
"Jet?" Koharu asked quietly. "I don't think I can do this…"
"Ko, if you need to sit this one out, I don't think anyone will think less of you."
"I know, but…"
"After everything, it's kind of amazing you're still standing, y'know."
"It doesn't feel like it." Koharu said sadly. "It feels like I'm useless… again."
"Koharu, you aren't useless. You went through a hell of a lot just, and the fact that you aren't curled up in the foetal position says just how resilient you are." He told her, pulling her into a hug. "But you know what you tell me? Resilient doesn't make you invincible, nor does it mean you bounce back immediately. You're still human at the end of the day, we all are…"
"I know, but…"
He gave her a kiss on the forehead instead of an answer. "Koharu, taking a break isn't the end of the world, and especially now it isn't. Just… take it easy for now, and we can have a proper break once this is all over." He smiled, and he hated that he couldn't help her more in this moment.
Despite that gnawing feeling in his chest, he held her tight until it simply looked awkward to everyone but them, and only then did they pull apart. "Oi, Klein! Keep the lady safe, yeah?" He asked jokingly, putting on such an over the top display that even Klein couldn't take it seriously…
Thankfully, Klein played along with what he was doing. "On my honour as a samurai and a gentleman!"
He could faintly hear Koharu laughing softly, and saying she'd give him what for for calling her "the lady", and when she realised that he had heard her, he gave her a cheeky wink as he walked away…
As they walked away towards the entrance, Philia and Rain both approached him. "You're way too upbeat, all things considered." Philia told him, spotting his act again. "You did this last time we fought Alaz; that whole cool hero shtick."
"Philia's right, you seem… different this time around though. There's almost a bloodlust in there."
"Alaz made this personal. I intend to make this final." He told them, a certainty to his words that he had rarely used…
He missed the anxious look that Rain and Philia exchanged as they entered the chamber though…
/-/
Coming face to face with the under construction golem for the first time, Jet had only one thought… "That thing is huge!" Which was soon followed up by another one. "How the hell are we supposed to get up there to hit that?!"
It was a valid question - the boss towered over them at nearly 100 feet tall, and the obvious weak spot appeared to be on top of its head, meaning that they would either need to learn to fly, or worse, find a way to clamber up the mechanical monstrosity.
"Perhaps it is rather simpler than that." Sanya said, pointing out some generators at the other end of the chamber. "If I were to guess, those are providing the beast with power. Disable those, and I would imagine that even a god may struggle to move that mass…"
"Sanya's right, but we're still going to need to keep that thing occupied, else we'll be in for a world of hurt when that thing tries to smash us into a million pieces."
"My vessel has returned… How foolish." He wondered for a moment how Alaz was talking - the golem didn't exactly have a mouth - but decided that wasn't important at that moment in time.
Above the metal monstrosity, a name badge appeared - Alaz the Incomplete Ifrit, along with the health bars confirming it was indeed the boss… and a new bar; a power bar.
Great, so even without the electrical generators, it still had an unknown amount of power it could harness once they were out…
"Nope, I've come for round three. Y'know, best of three…" He smirked. "Oh, and to kick your sorry metal arse - if you even have one in that lava - for hurting my friends and family, and me, obviously."
"You are as arrogant as ever, human. Do not make promises emptily."
"I've never promised you anything I couldn't do." He said darkly, allowing the more vengeful side of him to come to the surface briefly. After everything it had done, he was honestly surprised it had taken this long to resurface, and for once, he wasn't going to try to push it back down.
If anything, he might actually need to harness it to actually win this one…
"So, here's the plan… I'll keep its attention. Asuna, get everyone out back to higher ground, and smash those generators; and send it back into the lava. Got it, good?"
"Rain…"
"I'll make sure he stays alive long enough for Koharu to kill him." Rain nodded, almost as if Asuna saying her name had communicated far more meaning than the simple syllables it was made up of did.
"Good." Asuna nodded to them, and the rest of the group took off away from them.
"So, you oversized tin can, you plan to rule the world from a basement? Or is the first port of call after this a new set of legs?"
"I am plenty powerful to crush you like this…"
"Well then, let's see you try!" He shouted, and watched as a hand began to descend at them. "Well, he's trying at least!"
"He's like you then!" Rain shouted to him.
"How'd you mean?"
"Very trying!" Rain shouted to him, and he caught a glimpse of Alaz' eyes beginning to glow.
"Rain, lasers!"
"Damn -it?" She called out as she ran through the lasers unharmed, a stream of fire behind her, though notably not affecting her. "Okay, that was weird… wait, the laser beams are a tell! They're so we can actually dodge the pyrokinesis attack!"
"Good to know!" He shouted back, watching as the mechanical golem lifted higher out of the lava, and dropped its hands onto the platform; its knuckles glowing white hot as it clutched onto the platform… "Rain…"
"On it!" She shouted, and they each ran to the hand closest to them, and released every attack they physically could; sword strike and sword skill after sword skill onto its exposed knuckles…
Enough to make the metal scream.
"It really didn't like that, did it?"
"Nope, which means we keep doing it!"
"Foolish humans…" Alaz called out as a wave of what he assumed were barrels containing something nasty approached them from above. Counting them, he was almost certain they wouldn't be able to dodge all of them, but perhaps he could make one last use of Alaz's power…
"Haahh!" He shouted as a gust of wind took five or so of the barrels back into the air, and on a ballistic course for the golem's head, and it didn't take a genius to be able to imagine the reaction any living being would have to explosives landing on their head…
"URAGGGHHHH!" It cried out in agony, clutching its head where the explosive barrels had slammed into the top of its head.
"Now that worked!"
"I doubt it'll be dumb enough to try that one again though!" Rain reacted, dodging a barrel that had managed to rebound off the golem…
"I shall incinerate you all!"
As it had done earlier, the Ifrit raised above the lava again. This time however, its hand remained in front of it, finger intertwined with its eyes shut…
"What's it…" Jet paused for barely even a split second before realising something. When it dropped even slightly, the lava level had risen slightly. Now, it would be dropping its entire body weight into the lava… it would be like a person dropping a lead brick into an already full bathtub… Only this time, the tub was filled with lava and molten metal! "We need to get to higher ground, now!" He shouted, looking for a way to climb up the arena. "Sorry about this Rain, but we're going for a little flight!"
"Huh?" Rain had barely enough time to react to that statement, before a strong gust of wind threw her into the air, in the direction of the nearest platform. "Ahhhh!"
"First floor, telephones, gents ready-made suits!" He shouted, as he threw himself into the air with another burst of wind, landing only a few inches from where Rain had landed less than gracefully.
"Next time, a warning would be nice…"
"Sorry." He apologised awkwardly, as the wind had done a number on her outfit, making her look like she'd gone through a gale force wind backwards… as she actually had done, come to think of it.
"That's a heck of a power, isn't it?" She asked. "You really are the Knight of the Wind now, aren't you?"
"Yeah, well, I'd rather keep it for emergencies only. Last thing I need is to throw myself around the room, and die by hitting a wall I wasn't expecting."
"Would be a bit anticlimactic, yes." Rain agreed. "Now what though? The floor is literally lava, and there's not really a lot of platform left."
"Remember the Pyrovile fight?"
Rain gulped, and he nodded, a wordless understanding that this was going to suck - and that they would all need new costumes after this. Mostly as if they survived this in anything that wasn't a tattered mess, it was almost certainly going to be so badly sweat stained as to be unbearable…
"We're just going to have to keep dodging until we can get in our attacks."
"Maybe not though. You saw what that windburst did when you confined it into a defensive strategy, right?"
"Yeah, I was able to repel those barrels, but they were relatively light; it'd take a hell of a build up to repel one of those fists!"
"I wasn't thinking of that, I know that'd be impractical. What about throwing someone, like you just did to me?"
He didn't even have to think about how bad of an idea that one was. "No, categorically not. Rain, if something goes wrong, you fall into the lava and you die. I'm not sure enough of my abilities to catch you there."
"You have a point there, I guess." She deflated slightly. "Wait, Liz gave us these in case you couldn't stop Alaz!" Rain pulled out a handful of cylindrical objects that looked suspiciously like flash grenades of some kind…
"What are they?" He asked, already having an inkling of what they might be.
"Liz called them Frostbangs." He gave her a blank look at the name alone. "Yeah, we thought the name was terrible too, but they're some kind of chemical coolant that expands on contact."
"Those might just work against that thing, assuming they work like freezing Napalm…" He thought aloud, and winced at the image of a reverse Napalm bomb; something that stuck to its targets and froze them solid, rather than incinerating them…
"I think it's now or never!" Rain told him, and he turned to spot the hand now spinning up for an attack… assuming it did what he expected, he had an idea to give Alaz a really bad day!
"Rain, in the last second before that fist hits the wall, I want you to throw down a Frostbang!"
Almost immediately, Rain caught onto his plan."Got it!" She shouted from a slightly higher platform than the one he was on. He would have to time this perfectly in order to not be squashed or frozen solid, but he reckoned he could do it!
From the boss' position, its fist rocketed forward, the mechanical gubbins in its arm spinning and whirring as its arm extended to cover the gap, whilst the hiss of pistons and pneumatic lines filled the room…
Now!
He leapt into the air, his jump boosted by a gust of wind below him as a grenade dropped behind him. It only took a split second for the fist to make contact with the small canister, and for a cloud of cold smoke and ice to burst behind him; the arm now frozen to the wall and making for a handy platform to run across, and do some nasty damage to the Incomplete Ifrit…
Rushing forward, he could feel his platform struggling to free itself, but he carried on, attacking the exposed clockwork and the few pistons out in the open, snapping a few of them with a sword skill, whilst the cogs flew off into the lava below. "That's gotta hurt, hasn't it?"
"Insolent children!" Alaz screeched as it tried to get him off its body… by throwing its other fist towards the arm that was now frozen solid, and weakened on the end that attached it to the golem, rather than towards the wall.
The result was rather predictable, Jet thought to himself as parts of the detached arm broke away and plummeted into the lava below, whilst the Ifrit seemed mildly pissed off at losing one of its arms… and he now had the interesting job of getting himself off the golem before it cooked him.
"I'd heard of hot footing it, but this is ridiculous!" He muttered, every footstep across the boss' body burning away a little of the sole of his boots…
As he ran, he spotted the Ifrit preparing the same trick again, this time to squash Rain; and he figured he could make use of the attack to get himself back into position to support Rain - after destroying its other arm, of course!
"I shall crush you!"
The arm rushed forward, and Rain seemed to have reached the same conclusion as he had earlier, freezing it in place and racing up the arm, flurries of frenzied attacks impacting the Ifrit's gears and linkages as she went, whilst he did his best to rain blows and slashes against one of the more important looking linkages - one that looked like it was holding part of the arm in place, and if weakened, and when combined with the force of trying to extricate itself from the ice…
"RRAGGH!" Alaz screamed, as the arm detached and they found themselves running very quickly down it, before the amputated arm snapped away and fell into the molten metal below.
"Jet…"
"Yeah, I know, I'm getting a bollocking later…" He sighed, whilst Rain rolled her eyes. "Still, it worked, and that's got to make its life harder, right?"
"Let me guess, it's going to summon a load of smaller golems to attack us?" Rain thought aloud, as the platforms started to shift around… and the one they were on started to retract into the wall. "Or not!" She shouted in surprise.
"I've got you, just jump!"
"Okay, now-wahhh!" She shrieked slightly as she found herself flying across the cavernous gap…
Giving himself a bit of a run up, he leapt across the gap and learned a little more gracefully than last time…
"I am never going to get used to that…" Rain grumbled, as she removed herself from the heap she'd landed in.
"Hopefully, this goes away when Alaz does, because as cool as aerokinesis is… it's bloody exhausting!" He admitted, using the reprieve from incoming attacks to catch his breath. "I can only imagine how exhausted Koharu was, when Alaz was using pyrokinesis that whole time!"
"Yeah, speaking of running on empty; you see that power bar under its health bars, right?"
"Yup, that's going to be annoying to deal with."
"Something I've just noticed, it's building up that bar, absorbing power as it does. What if it's not just electrical energy though?"
He realised what she was saying as he looked down and fought back a curse at the realisation… "You have got to be kidding me… it's literally got its own geothermal generator too!"
"I don't know, it's only a hunch, but…"
"Yeah, it'd be too easy otherwise, wouldn't it?" He sighed.
Quickly, he opened his menu and sent Asuna a message, telling her about the generator theory, and asking if Liz had any more of the Frostbangs… or enough to make a giant one.
Quickly, a message in the affirmative came back, and they began to develop a new plan:
He and Rain would work their way to the top of the chamber, keeping Alaz's attention whilst the electrical generators were destroyed - something that the gathered force were already halfway to achieving - whilst Liz would hastily craft the giant frost bomb they needed to freeze the Ifrit's geothermal power supply…
Hopefully, that would be enough to handle the Ifrit, and stop Alaz once and for all…
"Either way, we need to keep on moving, it looks like it's figuring out how to hit us without its arms now!" He told her, spotting the tell tale beams of light that the Ifrit produced as it was using its pyrokinesis in this form in front of them.
"Jet, platforms!" Rain called out, and he spotted what she was on about as they climbed up - the platforms had not only shifted, but now they were continuously moving too!
Even if Alaz hadn't made this personal already, he would've said this was his most hated boss - a platformer, whilst learning to use new tricks and fighting a boss with an annoying gimmick, all with only one life…
Bloody Aincrad, was all he could think at that moment, as he took a leap of faith between the moving platforms. Beneath him, platforms fell away into the lava below, engulfed by fire as they hit the molten surface, and had he not been too busy thinking of how he was going to land safely, he would've shuddered at the thought of something similar happening to Rain or himself…
"Ha hah hah, I am far from defeated…"
"Give it a bloody rest will you!" He snapped back in frustration. "We get it! I am inevitable, I am infinite, I am a gigantic tin can with no arms and a superiority complex!" He mocked as he landed.
"You will rue the day you mocked me, boy…"
"Oohh, rue, now that's a word you don't hear often!" He retorted back. "Just shut that giant tin gob of yours already, will you!"
A mechanical laugh; one that sounded more like sirens and alarms than actual laughter, like the actual machine itself was laughing rather than Alaz, rumbled through the chamber, and Jet found himself grimacing.
Without its arms, it was definitely at a handicap, but that didn't mean it was defenceless - it could still summon fire probably, though it would be considerably less targeted without an arm to point at something, and that eye beam attack was still a very real danger to them.
One positive was that the attack group seemed to be doing their job, as the Ifrit began to move more slowly, draining more power to move, as its power supply began to drain faster and faster…
"What's the matter, big guy? The lights are on, but no one's home anymore?" He mocked, as they continued to climb the scaffolding around them.
"A god does not need such trifling things as a power source."
"Nope, but that body of yours does though!" Jet laughed.
"I am unstoppable… you cannot beat me boy…"
Before he could answer, he heard a voice shout from above. A very familiar voice… "No! Maybe they can't, but I can!"
Koharu!
He'd be having words with her about resting up after this, but he couldn't deny he was glad to see her up and about - a little bit dulled by the fact she was up and about in a boss fight, but still.
"My vessel returns…"
"I owe you everything you gave me!" She shouted, pulling out some kind of large canister from her inventory, and slashing it with her dagger… "I'll make you see what it feels like being trapped in your own body!"
She threw the canister down, the damaged cylinder impacting against the boss' body just above the molten metal, with a crack as the steam of the ice rushed vertically on the boss, eventually encompassing the giant in frost, whilst the lava below cooled into a solid block of metal.
"Help… me…" The metal giant groaned pitifully as it was consumed entirely by ice and supercooled metal, encasing it where it stood.
"Return from that!" He heard Koharu shout from the platform above, as the generator finally fell out of use, and the room cooled down massively, steam pouring through the room as the heat of the room became a chilling cold.
"What, no pun for once?" Rain asked, a smirk on her face at getting one over on him.
"Too tired, can't think." He admitted, sitting down on the now stationary platforms, and starting to laugh a little bit as his arms slumped beside him.
"Yeah, he wasn't the only one who ran out of juice there, was he?" Rain asked, completely missing the one liner she'd just come out with. "Oh for-" Though not for long, apparently, as she held her head in her hands in frustration.
"5 out of 10 for that one." He said.
"Sanya's right, you are a bad influence…" Rain sighed.
"Oh definitely, but it's in the best way." He grinned with his most Doctor-like grin, as they both just sat there for a few moments…
The fight was over, and if he was honest, Alaz wasn't coming back from that - he'd been frozen solid, and the metal beneath had solidified into a gigantic block that would ensure the body had no movement whatsoever.
Maybe it wouldn't be a permanent solution - after all, a very big blow torch would be enough to free the god from it eventually, but it had nowhere to go anymore. Its current body was immobilised, and if the scar on his hand healing was anything to go by, then its ability to possess them was fading along with the god itself…
As a quick test, he attempted to generate a small draught around them, though to no avail.
Yeah, this was over now, and he had never felt quite so relieved to be a completely normal human being again…
Now they just had to wait for the group to throw them down a rope so they could actually get out of the chamber, and- wait, why were they leaving?
They'd completely forgotten they were still down there, hadn't they?
For the last time in a long time, a shrill screech of anger rang through the room, though unlike the last times, this one came from Jet, and not the boss itself, aimed squarely at the person he blamed for their being left behind…
"ASUNNNNAAA!"
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Eventually, Asuna had realised - or more likely, someone else had realised, and told them to go back for them - that they had left them behind, and returned with a rope to allow them to climb out of the now static chamber, and teleport back to Harley.
Unsurprisingly, the return to Harley was muted in response to having been left behind, and the first reaction for Jet, Koharu and Rain was to collapse onto the nearest soft surface in exhaustion. In Koharu and Rain's case, that was the sofa, whilst in Jet's case, that was the carpet…
"I hate platformers now." Rain grumbled, having landed face first on the sofa.
"I, umm, I take it you all had an eventful day?" Mary asked, having come into the room to see three people she was starting to see as family, collapsed in heaps in rather unbecoming ways.
"Something like that, yeah." He muttered from the carpet. "Hopefully, that's over now."
"You all look terrible… sorry."
"Look and feel, Mary, look and feel…" He answered. "I feel like someone's been playing all my muscles like a fiddle all day…"
"Jet, can you stop drooling on the carpet please?"
"Not dribbling, that's sweat Asuna." He pointed out, trying not to think of the fact he was now lying in a pool of his own sweat, enough so that it left a human shaped shadow around him…
"That's disgusting." Asuna grimaced from behind, and whilst he couldn't help but agree with her, he wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of agreeing with her either.
"Fought a boss, live with it." He told her bluntly, still face down on the carpet.
"We did too, you know!"
"We spent nearly an hour being used for target practice." Rain reminded them with an unusual amount of sass behind her. "You attacked a generator almost unharmed. I think we deserve a rest…"
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After a well deserved lie down on the carpet - which he had to admit felt like the most luxurious bed in history at that precise moment, something that was telling as to just how knackered he was - Jet had felt his muscles decide they would actually work somewhat properly again, and seeing the exhausted Koharu on the sofa, awake but in a state he called "muscularly challenged" -i.e. She was awake, but it was telling that her limbs simply refused to do anything without a more thorough rest - he decided to be a good boyfriend for once.
"Ko, do you want anything?" He asked, already fairly sure of the answer.
"A nice long bath sounds pretty good right about now."
"As mi'lady wishes."
"Wait, I could have asked for anything there?!" Koharu realised. "A bath of chocolate, or…"
He rolled his eyes in amusement. "Within reason." He told her. "I don't mind getting you some chocolates, I think we still have some in the cupboards anyway."
"How romantic, weeks old chocolate…" Koharu laughed.
"I only bought them yesterday! Just that everyone eats everything the moment it gets put in!" He defended, and came to a realisation - it was like being back home!
Koharu looked away with a guilty whistle coming from her, knowing that the accusation was pretty accurate for her, just as much as it was for everyone else in the Concord… "I plead the fifth."
"I'll go run your bath."
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About twenty minutes of sitting and watching water flowing into a bathtub was not what many people would consider relaxing - to most people, it was about as relaxing as watching paint dry, he imagined, but it gave him a chance to sit there with his own thoughts, and make sense of the day.
What Alaz had said was still playing on repeat in his mind, and a few other things occasionally popped to the front too; the recurring one being the nature of Lueur. Initially, he'd thought of the troubadour as a nuisance; a twenty something playing a role, and hiding his lack of understanding in mystery, but after today, he wasn't so sure.
Lueur had been held under the same spell as had stopped Kizmel dead, and the implications that Lueur had a paymaster too… Well, all of them worried him to some degree, especially when he considered their previous interactions.
About the only person that he could think of that might have been their superior officer, for lack of a better term, was Quinella; the Justice System avatar he'd encountered a few months back, and who had pulled him out of the fire - literally.
There was too much going on here, and if he was honest, they had barely half of the pieces to put the puzzle together currently. That didn't mean he wasn't going to try, mind you, but he knew instinctively that he wasn't going to get a solid answer without those missing pieces…
"Thank you, you know." Normally, the sight of Koharu standing at the door in nothing but a towel would have sent the teenage part of his mind into overdrive… but after today? He wanted to rest, and they didn't need a night of passion, but more like a quiet night together…
"You needed a little something after today." He told her honestly. "Hell knows you deserve it, I think we both do, really… and umm, sorry about earlier. I know I kind of went way overboard in that fight…"
It had been easy to lose the sense of reality in that fight - the one that told him that Koharu wasn't fully gone, and once he won that fight, she would be back… and looking like he'd just used her as a punching bag.
Koharu gave him a fragile smile, one that told him just how rough that whole ordeal had been for her. "I don't blame you for going tough on Alaz-err, me. You didn't know I was still in there, not till you'd already gotten beaten up."
"I just lost it." He told her, sitting on the toilet, as she got into the bathtub; the bubble bath substitute having covered her modesty as she lowered herself under the water. "I thought I'd lost you, and… yeah." He looked straight ahead, almost with a thousand yard stare…
He didn't even want to imagine what he would have done, had he truly thought Koharu was lost to Alaz - it would've been a bloodbath, he reckoned, though he wasn't sure who would've come out of that one in the worst shape…
Himself, probably.
"I'm just glad you're safe now though." He told her with the best attempt at a relieved expression as he could manage.
"Yeah, I'm just…" Koharu's head sank amongst the hill of suds, and she held her arm out from the bath. He took her hand in both of his, and drew it as close to his chest as was possible. "She wasn't our daughter, but-"
"Maybe not, but we both would've loved her, right? The strange little girl we accidentally created and adopted…" He felt his teeth meshing together at the thought that she had only ever been intended as part of Alaz's trap - not human, not a miracle of life… but a pawn.
They all had been, he supposed, but she had had it the worst of all of them - she had always been intended as disposable, a vessel of the boss's return, one that couldn't fulfil her role and was disposed of when that became apparent.
A horrible reminder of just how cheap life was here sometimes, and one that he wasn't even sure that Kayaba had ever intended. Seven had told them that since day one, the ratio of work done by Kayaba and the Cardinal System had been shifting ever towards the side of Cardinal, and he had to wonder what percentage of this world they lived in now, if any, still had the bastard's hands in it.
"I should get a hold of myself, shouldn't I?" Koharu said sadly, the anguish in her voice apparent. Even if they'd never known her that long, he knew that Koharu had always had a soft spot for children, and watching them get hurt was a sure way to score a critical hit on her resolve - they'd learned that after Morte had murdered that boy in front of them in the Wintery Forest, and this had just reinforced that.
"It's alright to grieve, you know? No one's here to think any less of you - I certainly won't."He told her, as he put his hand in the water and rubbed her back as softly as he could. "I told you about my father, right? My birth father, not my dad?"
She shook her head, and the water sloshed around her. "He was a bit of a high flyer apparently. Private education, all that jazz, and he decided to become a pilot. Had a one night stand, and well… that's where I come into the picture. I never knew either of them - mother dearest left me with him, and about six months later… Well, he didn't fly high enough that day."
Gabby had never told him the details of what had happened, just that their plane had crashed into a mountain range in South America and that no one had survived, but it hadn't taken him all that long to find the details of what happened based on that little description. "Doesn't mean I don't still feel a twang of pain whenever I think of them though."
"It's dumb, but... I felt like I was honouring my mom when we had Cassy here. Like she was looking at me and smiling that I'd grown up as well as she would have liked..."
Knowing that, he asked her a pointed question. "And you think you haven't done that without her?"
"What have I done otherwise? I'm still a nobody..."
He snorted a little. "Nobody? Koharu Honda, you are not a nobody. Nobody is a nobody, everyone is important in their own way, and I know plenty of people who think you're important to them - not least of all, me."
She looked away sadly, tears returning to her eyes. "A useless snivelling nobody who's too bitter to ever be happy for me" She mumbled to herself, and he gave her a confused look.
Bitter was not a word he'd have ever associated with Koharu - self-deprecating, yes, but bitter? Who'd said tha-ohh...
"Koharu, I don't care what your father said about you, and truth be told, I don't think you should either. He is a horrible person who didn't bother to rise to the one task your mom left him, and that was raising you. You aren't bitter for being angry at him, you're human."
"Jet?"
"Yeah, sweet?" He felt his eyes widen slightly at the fact that he of all people had just used a pet name for her, but she didn't seem to notice, thankfully...
"When we get out of here... can we move in together? Me and you?" She asked, hope in her eyes.
"I think we can manage that, and even if we can't get our own place, I'm sure my mom wouldn't mind you staying with us for the time being."
"Thank you... I-I don't think I can go back to him. Not now." He'd never seen Koharu seriously doubting her life beforehand, but there was something in her eyes that told him she was thinking back, and doing her best to re-evaluate everything from a more external perspective now…
"You won't have to, we'll come up with something, I promise you that much." As he'd said to Alaz, there wasn't a promise he'd made that he couldn't keep, and he had meant that too.
They would get out, alive, and then they would spend the rest of their lives together. Maybe it was a bit of optimism, but he felt a smile come to his face… as his eyes became heavy, and he started to doze off.
It had been a long day, after all…