Alkor

He lifted himself off the bridge and turned to look out over the water as she spoke. Lessa answered his question as honestly as she could, and she came up with a better answer than he had despite claiming to know just as little. With his arms folded and his expression set in stone, he let her continue. She said that she'd spent so much time chasing people, she talked about pretending to be something she wasn't or doing something her heart wasn't in just to make others happy. It occurred to him, she understood his pain. Where he chose to cleave from expectation, Lessa had slaved herself to it. She'd become malleable and met every expectation placed on her, head on.

Regardless of whether or not it tore her apart inside.

Until this moment. She was telling him, flatly, that she refused to meet his expectations. She was refusing for her own good, her sanity, her happiness. Alkor couldn't possibly see fault in that. He gave a quiet sigh. A precious, handful of times in his life had anyone ever said that he meant something to them, and he still did not understand why. What it truly meant, or how he was supposed to feel- but what he did know, was that the ones who said it and truly meant it: those were people who cared if he lived, if he died, succeeded or failed.

He had known Lessa long enough, and she had persisted just as long, to pursue him. "Why do that to yourself?" he asked. For as long as he'd been alive, Alkor had fled society's expectations. He'd slammed doors in the faces of potential friends and enemies. Hell, even most of his family he kept at arm's length. Not just pain, but broken trust- all the things that disappointed him."Why even chase after something if it's just going to hurt you?"

He struggled to understand. It seemed so simple, so natural for Lessa to extend this olive branch. But as he looked at her, as he'd listened to her words, the woman sounded tired. It couldn't possibly be that she didn't feel all the same things he did. They had the same experiences. She just willfully walked a different path.

She was- as he'd always known- a much stronger person than him.

He let out a sigh, longer than any that preceded it. "No, forget that. Don't answer. I don't think I'd understand even if you did," he told her as he looked down to where she sat. "That's something I have to experience for myself. You're here, trying your hardest to just be my friend, even though it's exhausting. Even though I can't possibly imagine that you have anything to gain from it. You said you care about me, and even if I don't completely understand that, even if I don't get it-"

Alkor held out his hand, and offered to help her stand.

"I can't learn if I don't try."

This marked as quiet as Lessa had ever been around him. She was always filled with questions, she always wanted to know more. She sought to understand things. The woman was filled with so much passion and warmth and she had gone looking for something she thought was hidden, only to find that it was never there to begin with. When Lessa apologized, Alkor had felt no need to accept or even acknowledge the apology- because for Alkor, there was nothing to apologize for. She, like so many others had acted in the same way. They expected- even at times demanded of him- something he did not have the power or capability to give. For Alkor, silence was comfortable. It was companionable. It occurred to him that this was not true of everyone, especially when Lessa awkwardly cut in to continue.

"What is a friend, Lessa?" he asked, suddenly. 

"My parents always told me that I should make friends, and that being alone was painful, awful, undesirable. They said that one day, when I wasn't home anymore, when I was older, if I didn't have friends, I would be sad. Life would be hard." Alkor glanced over his shoulder to the water. "But when I met new people, they always wanted to 'know more about me,' or 'understand me,' or they wanted to have deep and meaningful conversations about the things we cared about."

Alkor only had vague, abstract concepts of 'love.' His experiences with it were disjointed and even when he could see the shape of it, that shape never took on a definitive form. He saw Lessa's kindness, but in the same heartbeat, he was not enough as he was. Lessa wanted more, and she told him so- just now. That she would stop looking. Her voice sounded filled with defeat. Was this what friends were? 

"It's never been comfortable for me to just exist." He said those words firmly. "Everyone lives their lives so quickly, wrapped up in the things that they care about, fully understanding and conforming to society's notions of how they should be, or what they shouldn't do- and it's terrifying," Alkor let his arms drop and his body slumped against the rail. He pulled his knees to his chest and hugged them. "I've never felt like part of that world, even though I was born in it. I don't know what I want to be. I don't know who I am. I don't know anything," he reiterated.

"Isn't it okay, sometimes, just to be quiet and relax?" the man asked at last, eyes closed. "I ask myself every day, ever waking hour, who I want to be. I fight a war inside myself against the voices that tell me I'm not good enough, and the idea that I'll never amount to anything. Is it wrong of me to not want to answer those questions for other people? Is it wrong that I don't know what answers to give them?"

He sighed. "I don't know what you want from me," Alkor added, finally. "I have nothing to give you."

He understood all too well what it meant. 

There was a time when he thought killing killers might make a difference. When he believed that his own lack of humanity made him perfect for the task- yet when faced with his own mortality, he couldn't reconcile the idea of dying. He had so many things left undone, so much potential for good, for evil, for everything in between. He had potential to live a life, unlike the empty husk that he was in the world outside of Aincrad. Limp, unenthused, and going through the motions, he had all but given up. Too afraid to life, too afraid to die... and then, Sword Art Online. "You don't have to hate yourself," he said quietly, "but the path toward loving yourself... I can tell you, it's a hard one, and it's filled with difficult decisions and a million obstacles."

She had busied herself with meting out justice, or her brand of it, and tried trap everything else about herself under ice. Sorrow, anguish, and bitter hatred- largely aimed toward herself- were all that could grow under those conditions. Setsuna revealed in an instant that they had already grown rampant. He kept his weapon low, uncertain as she spoke. Would she attack? Would her convictions outweigh the humanity still trapped deep beneath the frozen surface? 

Why did it have to be me...? 

He was confused when she said those words. What had he done? Surely, nothing so groundbreaking as to give this young woman pause? Yet here she was, clearly struggling, clearly on the precipice. Closer, closer, until there was no distance between them at all. If she wanted to stab him, she could easily have done it. Was he prepared to die for this? His hand tightened around his blade as he chewed his lip. He wanted to show mercy, like he preached. To do that, he had to first show trust. He had to give Setsuna every reason to believe his words were true. He had to show her compassion so that she could learn it.

Alkor dismissed his weapon and took a deep breath, his eyes shut. If the impact came, if his health began to drop, it would all be over quickly. He would never even realize it.

But it never came.

Instead, he felt something around him, something small but warm. Warmer than he would have expected from a woman in the same frigid environment as him, at least. He glanced down as she spoke, uncertain of what to do. Was she- was she hugging him? What was going on?

Quote

"Fine, have it your way. Prove me wrong." 

 Alkor was at a loss for words. Not only had he managed to survive, but Setsuna was hugging him. Had he gotten through to her, or was this a momentary respite? No- that hardly mattered. What mattered was how he followed through. Alkor could not begin to know the next steps for the woman. He hardly knew what path to walk himself. "Alright," he made up his mind, "lets head back. We're going to freeze," he reiterated. "...do you know which way it is back to the settlement? The blizzard has gotten pretty bad," he said, pointing toward the blurred horizon.

He had hardly anticipated a Mexican standoff today, and the storm wasn't doing them any favors, either.

There was no end to them. 

Alkor had neutralized or thrown over more than a score of peons and gained nearly no ground at all. He felt his energy stores waning and his body screaming at him. This was a team effort, and he rushed headlong into it alone- and the system was forcing him to pay for that. There was no turning back now- only forward, ever forward. His blade screamed out again as he parried a wild blade for the nth time, every motion fluid, lost in the last. His body spun, his arm reached out, and he lifted the offender over his shoulders in a quick motion. They did not seem to learn from watching him, because the same movement had spelled the end of more than three soldiers now. They did not care to learn. They  did not need to learn. They just had to wait until he broke down. He realized that at some point during the exchange.

But in a war of attrition, they had chosen the worst possible foe.

His eyes burned like those of a demon, the flames inside him fanned with each swing of his sword. He would not lose. He would not back down. He would hold the line. Until some ray of hope dawned on the horizon- until then, he would carry the small flickering flame and keep it alive. Another thrust, another swipe, two of them at once... his gaze watched, his body responded. His form was flawless. The system would carry him through, for as long as he had the resources. That was when he saw the others. Other small ships careening toward their larger, weaponized counterparts. Finally, the tide of battle was changing.

Under duress from their attackers, ships began to change course suddenly, erratically. The chain reaction of two ships losing control and and smashing into one another jilted his assailants. The soldiers, panicked, broke. Alkor seized the opportunity to plow through them toward the bridge. Not so far behind now, @Blueberry appeared from below deck just in time to see the beautiful chaos blossom across the skyline. Smoke and fire married a vast sea of clouds as metal and murder churned in its azure depths. 

He grabbed hold of the frame and swung his body fast around the corner, catapulting himself into the control room. Alkor wasted no time and would not allow the precious confusion to pass him by. He ripped his blade through the pilot, who's body slumped to the floor. He held the weapon up, challenging, his gaze moving predatorially over the navigators and copilots. "One of you bastards take the helm," he commanded. "This ship is under new management."

There was a pause. They looked between each other, uncertain.

"Someone step up, or I'll make the decision easier. Another one of you will end up like him," he gestured with Witchfang toward the dejected corpse he made moments before. "Savvy?"

"What's the new course?" a woman, one of the copilots stepped forward and grabbed the wheel.

"The Dreadnaught," he said, and he pointed toward another crew member with his blade. "Fly us any other direction, and I start bodying your friends."

The ship lurched, slowly, then began to crawl from its original direction. It was a slow transition, almost hesitant. "Fly faster," he growled. Every moment that they weren't at their destination breathing down Razwell's neck, he had another opportunity to prime that death weapon again. Alkor refused to allow that.

Fatigue sank into his body as they walked. He felt lightheaded, physically drained. The path they trudged led away from the group, and the heavy gazes that only made him even more uneasy. When the sunlight hit them and they were away from prying eyes, he finally felt some stability. What came next was unscripted- it had to be. He knew that because of how many times they had this conversation, or some iteration of it, where Lessa spoke with utmost certainty that she knew a better way. Her way. Alkor had admired her way- but it had never been his way. He was ready to hear it again, but it never came.

Quote

"No, you don't have to change."

His sigh was heavy, so heavy. It felt like he had been waiting for a lifetime for anyone to say those words. He slumped against the railing of the bridge and his legs gave out beneath him. Reclined with only the intricately carved wood to support his weight, Alkor soaked in the sunlight. Unlike the comfort of his room, the solitary and unending darkness supported by blackout curtains, the warmth of the sun brought a cleansing feeling. He did not need to crawl beneath sheets to seek it.  When he opened his eyes, they shared the heat of the sun that was reflected in them. She started to talk about what he needed again, and he felt like laughing. Was she still going to be on about that? About what she had to do? Maybe for Lessa, that was how she approached every issue, like there was a solution and she just had to find it. Alkor didn't see a world filled with questions and answers. That was, perhaps, one of the most fundamental differences between them.

Quote

I thought I could be your shining light, or your savior, or some other bullshit. The truth is, maybe I saw you as some sort of conquest. I think that's why it hurt so bad when you left. I thought I'd lost. I thought she'd beat me to you. That she'd succeeded where I'd failed."

"If you find 'me,' please tell me about it," he said honestly, "tell me what that's like. Tell me what he's like, because even I haven't found him yet."

The battle Lessa yearned to understand, to know so much about, was such a simple thing. There was nothing elaborate about Alkor. The only elaborate aspect of him were monumental walls he put up around himself to keep anyone else from reaching him. Beyond that, the conflict was exactly as he'd stated before. There was only one enemy, and it shared his face.

He'd constructed and worn a mask for so long, when it finally came off, there was another beneath it. Like one of those Russian dolls, every layer was a face he'd learned to wear for someone else. Every layer was a lie that he told to placate the expectations. Who he was beyond that, people only caught a glimpse of when he was in the throes of combat when he threw himself headlong into the fight and looked for the distant answer to the question, "am I worthy?"

Worthy of what?

To live. To exist. To continue where others haven't been able, simply because he was still alive. Where people who knew what they wanted, who knew who they were and had families, friends, loved ones- had died- Alkor remained. 

Thom, the Player, the being with a consciousness and the ability to reason, had no specific or tangible personality. He was a beast, a creature that existed on instinct and adapted to its surroundings to survive. But if that had kept him alive for this long, was it wrong? Did it mean that he did not deserve what he had? He did not want to die. He learned that when he looked death in the face. He did not want to change. He refused, again and again. That was the answer he found. The only one he had to give.

"My conflict might never end, Lessa," he answered her initial question at last. "I just want to know the people around me accept that, and don't expect anything else."

It was like a deep, rich wine, Vengeance. Once you took a sip, it either soured on your tongue and you never wanted it again, or it was intoxicating. Setsuna had not lost her thirst for it with a single kill.

Her words, her actions were like a woman possessed. He could see the intensity of her need. It replaced other, baser urges. "Who will have mercy on you?" he asked, his voice much quieter. "You, who have tasted blood again and again, who decries the actions of killers while becoming a killer yourself. How much deeper will you sink before you drown in it?" he questioned her. She was obsessed with this mission that she claimed to have chosen for herself. "When you finally reach out your hand, it will be too late."

She spoke about becoming a monster so no one else had to, and she denounced his actions as wasted kindness. He could no longer see the others, or anyone else. The storm had grown too thick, and he could feel the chill set in. If they did not seek shelter, the elements could very well end their lives. "If you are convinced that life exists only in black and white, you can't enjoy the beauty in every other shade." He gestured toward the town, or at least in that direction. "Come back together with me. It's too cold for this. You need a blanket and a hot drink."

After the Battle...

He stood there for a long moment, quietly. The light that filtered in through the windows and the fixtures above burned his eyes as he stared straight upward, gaze fixed on the ceiling. What had he come to this place to do, if not to challenge himself? Why, in the face of defeat, did he not just quietly accept? He had run from the beast that hunted him, that anxiety, so many times before. He managed to wear a mask over it, to push others away, and in the loneliness that followed he manage to convince himself that he had disconnected from the pain. The pain never left him, though. Every time, it returned, sometimes even stronger than before. In this last fight, all the demons came out to play at once. The overbearing voice of his father broke through the hold, and instead of fighting Lessa and climbing higher on wings of victory, he now stood in contemplation of his defeat.

This defeat was quieter than any one of his victories. The restless voices were still at last, a gentle calm that came after a long and relentless storm. How long had he believed that for a brief instant of validation, he had to endure a lifetime of criticism? How long had he believed that no victory would ever be enough? And now, without scoring even a single point, he could not bring himself to be disappointed.

His shoulders sagged, and he released the breath he forgot he had been holding. He blinked and looked away from the light, rubbing at his face, shaking off his dazed expression.

Quote

"Will you tell me what you're fighting for? Not just 'to win in duels' or 'to beat the game' - but what's at the heart of it. For as long as I've known you, you've been consumed by this endless need to be the best. Is there a place where you'll ever be satisfied? Where you can just acknowledge how far you've come? Because you are so, so much stronger than the Alkor I met in the Town of Beginnings, but in so many ways, you haven't changed at all. What will happen when you run out of people to compare yourself to?"

He had an answer now. At least, a better answer than nothing. He understood just a little more about what drove him to search for validation, even if it formed a thousand new questions in his mind. 

"Do I have to change?" he asked. "Will what I am never be enough? Not just for you, but for anyone?"

His eyes found Lessa, a small, soft smile on his face. "If I don't fight, every voice that told me I was useless wins. Every person who has ever told me that I am a failure, they're just right. There was a time when I accepted it, and I lived in my room with the door shut and locked up tight while life passed me by. I didn't meet new people, I didn't help anyone, and I couldn't possibly have saved anyone. If I'd never entered this game, I might have kept going like that forever. I might have died, old and alone, and never known that there was a different way to live."

Alkor staggered slowly, still numb to sensation as reality struck him. It was real. He was here, everything had happened, but he wasn't breaking down. He had weathered that storm and found himself at rest in a motionless sea. Him, Lessa, and no one else. He discarded the bokken to the side of the mat where someone else could find and use it later. "Then it happened. I was here. I couldn't escape to my room. There were people I had to meet, had to work together with- there were things I had to do that made me uncomfortable, and if I refused, the only alternative was to die. Work with others, learn to coexist with others, or die. I thought I wasn't afraid of death, but every time I came close, I realized that no one is ever ready for it. Even at the end of their life, I imagine that no one is prepared to let go of what they know and go on to something else- something we're not even sure about."

When he finally glanced back at Lessa, his golden eyes were weary, like he had been holding on to something heavy for so long and he was finally ready to rest.

"There's still so much I don't know," he admitted, "still so much I've got to learn. But my enemy isn't something so simple to overcome. It's not any number of opponents in a ring, or mobs spawned across the face of this world. I could fight those things to the point of exhaustion, but they would never yield a favorable result. In the end, I don't see anyone else. I don't want to be anything other than what I am. The best possible version of myself." He hesitated for a moment before he finally admitted, "I'm just waiting for the day that the rest of the world can accept that, as it is."

Before Round Two match...

Quote

 "So like, a better question- why not?  It's for getting to know people better, right?  There's only a couple people that, like, I don't know here, and you're one of them.  So if I manage to make it all the way, like, to the top, then that's the decision I made."  @Astreya

Impetuous.

That was his impression of the woman, after he everything else stripped away. She came to her conclusion based on nothing other than wanting to know people better, and the fact that he was among what few she did not know. What Koga said gave Alkor the impression that he had warned the woman against this course of action, and she had seen fit to ignore those warnings. There was no better word for it than impulsive.

But there was something wrong about the way she spoke, the exuberance that felt almost contrived. Did she want to talk to him, to know him better, or did she just want to extend her knowledge and pool of resources? The social exchanges that happened in those upper echelons of society weren't lost on him. They called him the beast-like one, separated from the rest of civilization by his refusal to integrate and run with the pack. That was how their kind deal with his.

The way they dealt within their own was what drove him away. "Because I see no point in the exchange," he answered simply enough.

Alkor eyed the woman for a moment in silence as she continued to speak.

Quote

"Unless you wanna chat now? Let you off the hook~"

"I do not," he replied, "my match is getting ready to start. Anything you want to know about me, you can learn by watching that. I see no need to stand on such frivolous social conventions." Alkor gave a slow, slight, stiff bow as he turned away from the woman and looked toward the staging area. He inhaled sharply, his mind on all manner of things other than the match about to start. It may have been harsh and blunt, but it was better to be himself than create a false image of who he was in the minds of others. 

"..."

There was something annoying about how everything had culminated. From the realization that there was a date on the line at the end of all this to the way that the social situation had unfolded, Alkor felt unnerved. He disliked everything about this situation, like he didn't belong here and coming was a mistake. He could feel the heat welling in his face, the unsettled sensation in the pit of his stomach- was he excited, or was this something else?

In spite of that, he had come, and he would see it through. Whatever that entailed.

Finally, in that moment, she didn't ask questions. She didn't look for the "answer." It was so simple, yet they were so different. They heard things, experienced things, and at times even understood things differently. For a species so homogenous, the diversity that separated a single human from every one of their counterparts baffled the mind. Alkor, as a boy, had been forced to try to find a place in the paradigm. Like paper, they folded him, trying to shape him into the "right" fit. Everyone, everything around him called out for conformity. The world called on him to accept his differences and embrace its expectations. For as long as he could remember, Alkor had rebelled against that notion. Instead of trying to understand, everyone was trying to "fix" him. His parents, the people who should have been there for him, stood at the head of the charge. In doing so, they pushed him away, so far away that he wanted nothing to do with them, or with anyone else.

He wasn't a door to be unlocked. There was no next level. He was content being who he was- or he had wanted to be, for so long. The world had told him no. It had never been satisfied with his complacency, and in his stubbornness, he lost himself. His rebellion against the expectations placed on him by others turned into something grotesque, a self-loathing, an inability to accept the person he was born to be. He looked everywhere but inward for an example, and he grasped at them until it unraveled his mind with anxiety and immense pressure.

Alright, she had said.

Such relief in that word, that simple utterance of acceptance. He called out to Lessa, he beseeched her for that validation he so desperately sought. The validation that he had been denied so many times, to the point where his hope had dwindled from a fire into a sputtering candle on the verge of going out. Instead of one of the many chasms that stood between him and his peace, instead of the monolithic walls that others built and he felt the desire to tear down, Lessa stepped out of the way. She brought her blade down at him, and his own bokken intercepted. Their weapons smacked loudly, louder than any impact in the room before it. They traded blows, and Alkor snarled like the beast he was, clawing at the chains that had always bound him. Others entered this tournament for various reasons, and they saw the final victory as a goal, if one born out of fun. Alkor never needed that win, had never wanted the prize waiting at the end. 

And perhaps it might be over too soon, but for the first time instead of pressure, he felt nothing only satisfaction as he fought.

Lessa: 2/3

Alkor 0/3

Tie

His breathing was ragged when she rounded on him, his body shuddering as adrenaline fought on two fronts inside it. He felt like he was coming apart. 

Quote

"If you need us to stop,"

"No," the word tore from between his teeth as he grit them, his knuckles white as he tightened his grip on the bokken. "I'm not losing to this," he said, shaking his head. I'm not going to live in that shadow anymore. For as long as Alkor could remember, his battles had always been clear cut. The victory was all that mattered, and defeat meant he wasn't worthy. But this sensation, the fraying of his nerves, the utter lack of concentration- this wasn't going away. This was a fact of his life that he had always tried to push to the side and pretend simply did not exist. He could lose here by throwing up his hand right now, and for a fleeting moment as she scored the second point on him and he folded backward, he had considered it.

But was the real victory in stepping out with a flawless victory? He wasn't frustrated about losing, because he had lost before. He could always go back to training. He could always advance, but right now, if he looked away from that specter of his father and let it convince him that he had not grown at all... wouldn't that mean starting over from the beginning again?

The rage in him was there. It would always be there. The pain was not going away. He would stand, and if he lost, he would lose on his own terms. He would continue to train- he would always continue to improve, always fight that unseen battle, but in this moment, he had to give Lessa a response. "Don't you dare go easy on me," he told her, his voice stern but still shaking. 

She had grown beyond the fragile woman he first met. Before, she was afraid. She let those insecurities rule her, and she'd held a grudge. Now, despite the fact that he was struggling, she was able to lift her sword and hit him. Her words proved that Lessa was still Lessa- still concerned for her friends, for the people she cared about- but she was strong enough to act without the influence of those feelings. She asked him if he wanted mercy, she asked him if it should end there, and he spat on the floor.

"Give everything," he said, "otherwise, how can you tell whether or not you've grown?"

He inhaled one last time, and when he exhaled, he adopted a proper fighting stance.

If she showed him mercy, if she did anything less, it would invalidate any growth he'd seen. He would be given the same freedom he always was, the ability to look away from the ugliest parts of himself and pretend like they did not exist. Alkor refused to walk away like that. It was no different from running away- just like she'd told him not to do, so many times.

Don't you tell me to run away now.

That burning star, the paragon of everything he admired, the golden light that was Lessa...

What would her answer be?

Lessa: 2/3

Alkor: 0/3

Tie

The instant he saw her name opposed to his, Alkor paused.

Around him, the world was silent, frozen, a glassy replica. The myriad sounds of excitement and anticipation drowned as the air thickened around him and his heartbeat became prominent in his ears. There were emotions in the abstract that he still did not understand, and perhaps he might never understand them. He felt like he was choking again, the familiar tugging inside his throat that threatened to close it when he looked at the expectations thrust on him by his parents. What was this? They aren't here. 

He took a breath, his thoughts on his sword and nothing else. Just another obstacle, he reminded himself. He assured himself.

The images were still there. Overlapping Lessa, overlapping the crowd, jeering, haunting. He saw their faces scrutinizing him and filled with disdain. "Shut up," he muttered. He hadn't meant it toward Lessa, or toward anyone else. The words came shakily out, and as he clutched his forehead, Alkor closed his eyes and tried to push the crushing sentiments out of his mind. You're a failure, the masculine voice railed into him like a landslide. He felt his grip slipping, the control he worked so hard to gain falling away like his word had been for nothing from the very beginning. He clutched the bokken, facing not Lessa, but the reproachful and overwhelming presence of his father.

Quote

“This time, there’s a date on the line. It’s a shame you won’t be able to treat that perky little Astreya to dinner.”

He heard Lessa's words. They broke through, and for a moment, he was drawn back to the present. He saw her, saw the movements. It would have been easy to respond-

A date? You? You've never given a woman a second glance. He brought his weapon up and parried- or he thought he parried- no, damn! Lessa hadn't even moved yet! He was swinging wildly, clumsily, lashing out at the voice. "Focus," he spoke more loudly now, his voice a low growl.  He had to bring himself back from that place, from the void that threatened to drag him farther away, down from the pinnacle he had aspired toward. 

Quote

“But I thought you only dated girls with pink hair."

By the time his weapon was up, Alkor had already been struck. He felt the impact, if not the pain. With a loud, frustrated yell, he punched himself in the face.  "Stop fucking with me!" he yelled. The voice receded for a moment, but he felt the leering gazes still. The weight of them made his body feel sluggish, clammy, and chilled. He wanted to focus, not on anything else but the fight. There was nothing that could have warned him, nothing that could have stopped this outcome. Lessa had become important in his mind, a figure he looked up to, someone who cared about his growth. Someone who he could let down, just like his parents.

His cheeks were on fire, flushed as he took deep, heavy breaths. This had been about getting stronger, it had been about proving that he wasn't a failure, and now in the midst of that turmoil, he found himself failing again.

Look at you, panicking. All it took was the smallest amount of pressure, and you cracked. You've always been such a disappointment.

He gripped the training sword with his head down, shaking his head. It shouldn't have come to this.

Alkor was looking at Lessa, but his eyes were staring through her toward something else. He was looking at the apex, the place that seemed farther away now than it ever had before. He wanted to scream.

"Your point," he muttered, his gaze dropping to the ground. At this point, it was all he could do to manage to stand and fight. He wouldn't run away. Not again. Never again.

This was the best defiance he could manage. 

To lose with dignity.

Alkor: 0/3

Lessa: 1/3
 

Alkor continued to watch the Treat passively, still in a crouched position as Freyd ruminated over the scene. "You hadn't noticed?" he asked quietly. "They come here only to mourn." He reiterated the sentiment, only it had been rephrased into something less cryptic. "Ellesmera is the domain of the Elves, but they don't claim anything else. Life is their domain. Their culture keeps death separate. Sacrosanct." The blonde gestured idly toward the Treant, twisting his wrist slowly to indicate the space around them. "This place doesn't belong to just the Elves." He watched the blind guardian free itself from the ruined dirt and detritus fall away from its groaning, creaking form. 

Freyd's words were answered by a croaking, drawn out laughter. The Ancient coughed and choked on the dust and ashes accumulated in its maw. Its eyes moved, seeking the source of the voice, and it fixed its gaze in the direction of the two men. "What. Know. You. Of. Tragedy?" the behemoth lurched to and fro, its sightless gaze disapproving.  "Saw. You. The. Cost. Of. War..." its tendrils of wood undulated over the ground, writhing and fumbling across the myriad stones. They radiated in response to the touch. Alkor noted this strange phenomenon, then glanced back to the Treant.

"But. War. Wages. On."

Alkor frowned.  Was it going to attack? He stayed low, but prepared his body to respond quickly if an attack came. "Elf. Treant. It. Matters. Not. As. You. Said," it leaned forward, a fetid stench spewing forth with its breath. Alkor blinked rapidly several times, suppressing the urge to gag as his <<survival>> skill activated. "All. Things. Die."

"For all the reverence that they place on the souls of the departed, they have done nothing to stop souls from departing," Alkor intoned at last. "No matter how many times they learn, the lesson never sticks."

"Harmony. Never. Came." It answered Freyd at last. "No. Peace."

There was pain in the howl that followed those words. Alkor winced and took a step back unintentionally, harrowed by the utter anguish that had been unleashed. The sundered marker beneath the beast smoked, as if it had been ablaze. It was like a hen nesting her eggs, careful to keep the warmth close to them. The Treant hovered close over the monument, loathe to let the light fade. "Whatever power clung to that monument is fading away," he whispered, "it was trying to prevent the loss, and used its own body to stem the flow."

Quote

"I'd say good fight, but I think we both want a rematch at some point, eh?"

Alkor nodded. The way the event was engineered did not allow either man to fully gauge his own strength, let alone the skills of another. It was a simple metric, points based on hits, to examine the aggregate abilities of each player based on their efforts in a vacuum. He would not consider the loss representative of Koga's potential. He would not consider his victory a statement of any kind about his own. Instead, he saw victory and defeat in this setting as a litmus for how much or how little training he needed. Had he been too relaxed, or-

Quote

 "Her. From what I understand, she should be your next opponent, unless something's changed."

His gaze slowly moved toward @Nari-Lanrethfor a moment, quietly considering her. She was small, her features were pallid, almost like a porcelain doll.  Her bangs fell in front of her eyes, almost to the point of obscuring her face. She did not ooze the confidence that the others did. This woman was taking part in a tournament for swordsmen? His expression was stern. The system did mitigate the natural weaknesses of players to a degree, and even enhanced what innate skill they brought with them into Aincrad. He knew better than to underestimate someone based on how they appeared, but she had the look of someone who did not belong, who was frail. It felt inappropriate, almost tasteless to endanger her.

It would not stop him, in the same way it would not stop any mindless creature in this world, from bearing down on her with his full strength.

Quote

 "Like, yeah!  Nari's your next opponent, but for looking you, you better look out for me!"

This time, golden eyes snapped toward @Astreya. This woman, in contrast to the other, was the same height as him. Her eyes were shining with a radiance he couldn't match, though he noticed something familiar about the smile she wore. Her voice was louder by far than her peers, and the way she exaggerated her speech, the directness with which she approached... 

Quote

"Cause if I win, I'm gonna take you out on that date!"

His eye twitched as her words took on new meaning. What he thought was a challenge shifted into jaunting. She wanted to take him on a date? "Why?" Alkor did not bother masking his skepticism when he asked, regarding the woman with the same scrutiny he would any opponent. If this was her tactic for unnerving him, perhaps @Koga had set her on this wayward path? He shot a look toward the man, but before he could admonish him, the other woman finally spoke up.

Quote

“I’m Nari. I hear we’re to spar next. From what I’ve heard, you’re a capable fighter. I look forward to our contest, and hope that you provide a challenge.”

Any reservations that might have existed in him died in that moment. His gaze moved slowly toward the woman, like a predator fixing its hungry gaze on prey. If she felt bold enough to speak that way, she had the stomach to accept whatever came next. "I'll let my sword do the talking, if it's all the same to you," he bowed his head slightly. Alkor straightened his back as she quickly disregarded him, much in the same way he had thought nothing of her at first glance. She was another obstacle. Nothing more, nothing less.

He turned to look at the rest of the group gathered after the first round, leaving the others to their conversation.

Ladonian and Galtean clashed in destined conflict. The shrill sounds of metal clashing screamed through the bowels of the airship as Alkor hurried forward, squeezing past tight quarters swordplay toward the corridor that led to the upper deck. Another solider whipped through the door and thrust at top speed. Alkor batted the attack deftly aside and hurriedly shuffled to one side, which sent the soldier sprawling behind him.

They had no time to engage in a melee, let alone try to hold the breached lower deck of an airship against an indeterminate number of enemies. If they wanted to put any kind of dent in the movement of the fleet, they had to wrest control of the airship from its crew.

"Restrain those who you can," Alkor called to the girl, "but focus on pushing forward!"

His voice was strained over the sounds of combat, but he had hope that it would reach @Blueberry, the girl he did not know but who had chosen to play attaché to his boarding party. "I'm going ahead, if all goes well, regroup with me at the-"

He had no time to finish the thought, as a wild looking blade hooked through the doorframe and nearly took his head off. Alkor immediately identified the greatsword for what it was, though he had hardly expected to see heavy infantry here. The assailant was armored in Obsidian black, armor polished to a reflective shine. "Elite!" one of the rebels from the boarding contingent screamed. 

"Elite!" Another screamed. The alarm system raised the hairs of every Galtean aboard, and they pressed their attack to find whatever hasty advantage they could. "If there's elites, we need to -- shit."

The sound of chains rattled across the deck, whipping and dragging as they kept time with slow, steady footfalls. Another heavily armored knight, this one armed with a massive spiked flail and lengthy chain, ambled out from a different corridor.

The pilot glanced to his countrymen and grimaced, one after another, before he turned his gaze to Blueberry finally. "Beg pardon lass, but it was all we could do to get you aboard. We can hold the Elites here, best case scenario, just long enough..."

He didn't finish those words. Instead, he took a breath. "...what I mean to say is, you have a much more important job. Please, let us handle this."

Crack.

Alkor spun beneath the massive blade, still wedged into the wall. The armored attacker was slow, but the power behind his strikes was nothing short of immense. If he met this man head on and engaged in prolonged combat, it would only waste precious time. 

Creaaaaak.

He could hear the blade dragging free, slowly. He had to make the decision now. Alkor slid to his feet on the opposite side of the Elite Knight, scrambling toward the staircase. The hulking mass grunted and growled in annoyance, but continued to work at his weapon. Alkor seized the opportunity to rush above deck, head first into a small cadre of Ladonian infantry who were just about to join their friends below deck.

Alkor huffed as he slammed shoulder first into the closest of them. The man was young, not much older than Alkor himself. The effort drove him off his feet and robbed him of the air in his lungs, and it managed to send his fellows into a state of shock and panic. With a deft turn of his body, Alkor kicked the Knight square in the gut and sent him over the railing, screaming. "You guys are in the way."

His blade was in hand before he completed the spin, and he drove the wicked blade Witchfang into one of the others who had thought to seize the opening. The blade erupted from the other side of the man, gasping and gurgling as the blight spread through his body rampant. He seized and went limp, bleeding from the festering wound. Alkor stepped over him and glanced around quickly.

He had to make it to the bridge, and there were more of them closing in to bar his path.

Her voice cut into his thoughts before he had a chance to put them to words. She arrived more quickly than he anticipated, and that meant they could get away from there before he was buried alive. She might have noticed the nervous tick, the way he clicked his teeth- or that his eyes darted around, distrustful, while his hand rested near his sword belt. He was the same as them in some ways: uncertain, cautious, though perhaps his mania was an exaggeration born of innate anxiety. Up to this point, he stuck to the higher floors and honed his skills as a swordsman. Once he was able to confidently go alone into the unknown, he did just that without any misgivings. Returning to what was known often brought back memories. It often forced him to face the "comforts" of society, those things that were supposed to be familiar. 

For a mercy, Lessa was more interested in the things that were not so familiar. She wanted to explore changes born of their actions in Aincrad, and ripples that came as a result. Rumors. That would lead far from civilization, to places where the only eyes that fell on him were ones with well-understood intent. At least the things that wanted to kill him were forthcoming and honest about it.

Quote

"Thanks for agreeing to come out." 

"Yeah, sure," he replied offhand. Was she always that congenial? Maybe she felt like things were weirder between them than he did. Before he started to panic and overthink, though, she added:

Quote

"I've been looking for an excuse to get out of the house."

"Huh," her words struck him by surprise. It was unexpected for Lessa to need a reason to be social. Unless there were things he didn't know, things that weren't implicitly understood. "I figured it was just routine for you to go out," he blinked. Something wasn't right- though this marked the first time he saw it without her telling him. Was he getting better at it, or was she making it obvious? A bit of both, perhaps? "Trouble in paradise?"

He chose those words specifically because they wouldn't poke the bear, wouldn't end with knuckles in his face from an unhinged and overbearing alpha male. While there was a shred of concern, Alkor knew Lessa to be the better of the two of them at navigating social situations. Or at least... from his perspective. She'd once said that she envied him the ability to cut people out. Greener grass, he mused in silence. He pressed no further than that; if she wanted to say more, she was going to do it without his prompting. The fact that he'd asked as much as he had, that was a marked improvement over his usual grunted affirmations.

They stepped off of the bridge and into one of the the expansive jungle. He would follow her lead to the ruins from here, since she'd been the one to get the info from the broker.

His return to the tournament area was met with announcements. Baldur began to read through the winners, and Alkor winced as he heard the commentary attached to his name. It seemed there were still people who remembered, or at least, people who cared enough to remember. He much preferred the idea that his name would return to insignificance, and that his survival would be a painful memory to as few players as possible. Nonetheless, he continued to walk on the outskirts of the group, sizing up the group. His preliminary assessment was as useful as the updated one. He still did not know anymore. He froze when someone said his name in the group of players nearest Koga, not far from where he was standing.

Quote

"Like, look out Alkor!"

Was... was that a valley girl? His gaze snapped toward the speaker, a woman he did not know, boisterous and brimming with energy to rival the rest of the crowd by herself. He thought he'd heard his name before, but this time there was no mistaking it. Was this woman going to be his next match? It seemed like the logical conclusion to draw, given that he did not know the name of his next opponent yet, and that she had singled him out of the many entrants. He took a few quiet steps toward the group as they continued to converse, careful not to interrupt their conversation prematurely.

Once they reached a point where he felt it might not be rude, he leaned in and glanced between @Koga, @NIGHT, and finally toward @Astreya, the woman who spoken his name.

"...and what should I be looking out for?" he asked, genuinely curious.

Alkor was almost asleep, almost to the point where his dreams eclipsed reality.

When his eyes snapped open again, he wondered if this was a dream. 

Quote

"Watch out!"  

He stumbled forward onto his haunches as the tree- treant? - yes, it was clearly alive, and in a very foul mood as it raised out of the ground and lurched toward... someone. Alkor had no recognized the voice, nor had he seen anyone else or he wouldn't have tried to nap. His body moved forward on instinct, driven by the system and dragged along by the sudden manhandling that the other man gave his cloak. He rolled head over heels and up to his feet, and the impact barely missed him. Where he'd sat prone a moment before, cracks split the earth and the ground spasmed. The ripple effect shook him and split his attention between recovery and discerning the current situation.

He was on the back foot.

Quote

"Why. Do. You. Trouble. The. Dead. And. Dying?"

Quote

"Whoa!  Hey!  Easy there, Dippy!  No need to get all mean and thwompy!  I'm sure he meant no harm.  What say you lower your arms and we promise not to raise ours, eh?  Sounds a fair bit better than all of us going straight to hacking each other to pieces?"

Alkor groggily listened to the back and forth, jarring though it was. His brain was still cloudy from failed respite. He smacked his temple with a palm in vain attempt to rearrange his thoughts. The man who grabbed him by the cuff now prodded his shoulder, and his gaze followed the pointing finger to its conclusion. The creature looked for them, listening, but it did not seem to see anything. Upon reaching a nonverbal consensus that their assailant was, in fact, blind, Alkor glanced back to the man, down at his shoulder, then back up as if to say stop touching me.

Maybe he had something in common with their new friend. (Other than his sleep being interrupted.)

Quote

"Liars!  All.  You.  Do.  Is.  Bring.  Death."

He wasn't inclined to disagree with the ancient, though. In Aincrad, Players came and went, and their only recourse to move forward was to leave behind mountains of data harvested from the NPCs and mindless monsters that littered the path. With what should have been a murderous headache, Alkor was thankful that the system filtered out pain. He took a slow, measured step backward without drawing his blade. The other player seemed to have engaged in conversation with it, and an attempt to take up arms might compromise that. He took that opportunity to take a better look at their surroundings.

When left unmolested, nothing had seemed out of place. Now that the centerpiece of the graveyard took off its mask, the truth was much uglier. Rotted leaves and fungal growth, the smell of death without rebirth. Nature turned on itself and the cycle came to a halt. He'd seen this before, in an environment that went untended. Loamy soil stank as it festered, and leaves that piled high discouraged growth when no light was allowed to shine through. "This place," he said, clearly interjecting his thoughts rather than joining the conversation on one side or the other, "it doesn't get many visitors, does it?"

His voice was sullen, if still a bit groggy. He gestured toward the grave, though it would be lost on the treant. "Only the people who bring their memories of death," he guessed.

The ship rocked, creaked, and jilted as they made impact.

He hardly imagined it would go as smoothly as it had. Razwell's loyalists proved to be complacent and untested, which spoke of the Empire's decline. They enjoyed a period of peace for an indeterminate amount of time, without the need to take to the skies for war. Their pilots failed even to take evasive maneuvers. He would have pitied them if it had not been such a victory for the cause.

The initial damage assessment was unnecessary, and he did not bother to take stock on his own. They traded their ship for the chance to seize something larger, more capable. Perfectly executed, the easier portion of the plan was behind them.

Quote

"Is there any chance we could talk this out with them? They're just following orders aren't they?"

He wore a dour mask from beginning to end of the question. It was just like everything in war, rife with shades of gray. "It may be there are those of them who act out of fear, or because they know nothing else," he admitted, albeit his voice was stone as he spoke the words. The enemy was already on them, flooding the room like water through a breach. "But we've passed the point of reason. They'll only respond to action, now."

Alkor raised his sword, and with it, his voice. "We need every able body now," he called out to rally the survivors, those not too wounded to go on. "This ship was built by your hands, with the fruits of your labor, and the coin taken from your coffers. By right, it is yours, and now-"

He turned his gaze sidelong, back toward the ragtag group who manned the ship with him.

"-It's time to take it back."

Dawn came in silence.

He might have missed the sunrise if he hadn't glanced up for a moment. The willow trees dwarfed the small lichyard, and unlike the trees that swelled in the expanses of the floor all around them, these let nothing through. It was like eternal night, almost prodigiously so. He thought to ask one of the elves or a treant, or anyone else who might have been involved with the construction of the site, but there was no one. It was the untimely loss of the strange flora that bloomed around the monuments that drew him hear, on the winged words of an information broker, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Flowers that bloomed near graves were an ill omen in the world he knew, but the culture he was different. They were grim, but they were reminders of a life lived, a connection between two worlds. So long as they existed, those souls might never truly die.

That was the tale, at least. In practice, there were hardly enough blossoms to make such an argument defensible. Alkor counted on less than two hands the number of flowering plants that thrived here, and rightly so. A lack of sunlight proper made for poor conditions and fickle soil. His grandmother had loved gardening, and she shared that with him despite his protests as a boy. In the end, the knowledge he gained helped him find peace among leaves and blooms, a welcome respite from the harshness of the real world. In the end, his grandmother's love of plants was not enough to save him from the overwhelming urge to flee. The same could be said for these plants. Despite their best efforts to thrive, their circumstances made their very existence an anomaly, if not a miracle.

"It's too bad this game doesn't let just anyone find information about plants," he muttered as he hovered his hand over the burgeoning flower only to be met with a series of question marks. "I might have to suggest someone who knows a thing or two about horticulture come out and have a look." His assessment seemed open and shut, but there were still questions to be asked. There were still things he could learn, finite though his abilities were. 

With daylight came the breeze, and the yawn of morning sent a chill down Alkor's spine. There would be no elves to hound him, not unless it was a day of mourning. He watched the horizon quietly like someone or something might appear, but nothing did. The longer he waited, the more he started to think that the flowers were simply unfit for their current conditions. He stood upright and stretched out, arms crossed behind his head as he cracked his back. "Shame," he muttered. "I was hoping for something more..."

He found himself following the example set by the wind and let out a yawn. Like so many times before, he had forgotten to sleep. Perhaps time had just bled together, and he just lost track of the times when he should. Though time moved normally in Aincrad, his mind had long since disassociated from the real world. Night and day ceased to play a role in his circadian rhythm, if there were a rhythm at all. These days, it was wild drumbeats played by the hands of infant children: inane, without direction, erratic. He slept when his body crashed, or he could no longer fight the urge.

"...interesting," he finished the thought a moment later, disinterested now in his surroundings. The urge to rest had come on suddenly and powerfully, and this seemed like as good a place as any. Alkor curled up next to one of the willows, and with his sheathed blade pressed close to his body beneath one arm, he bowed his head and nodded off. 

"Oh well. Maybe if I wait an hour or two..." he started to say, but his eyelids were drooping.

Lambent light nestled within the elegant structures of Ellesmera, glistening off the raindrops that seeped through the canopy of leaves. The architecture served as beacons in the absence of moonlight or the stars to guide him as he trekked through the sepulchral city. Whether it was the absence of daylight or the annoyance of rain that hurried them off the streets, there were no elves to be seen. The only sounds came from precipitation as it struck and reverberated, splotchy and dank in contrast to the surreal beauty. The shuttering of windows and soft shutting of doors broke caught his attention as Alkor made his way north.

The forest was a place of growth. Elves celebrated their longevity and the gift of life itself. They accepted the end, but sequestered their deference to it beyond the boundaries of their city. It did not surprise him when they shut themselves away, or that they treated his trajectory as an ill omen. They did not simply invite the outsider into their homes. They prayed him away with haste and barred their doors as he passed, with hope that his gaze would not settle on them. He kept his eyes dutifully forward, almost merciful, almost like the god of death they perceived him to be.  

He had not come for them.

His hood was drenched, dripping as he pressed on. "Is it true, I wonder?" he questioned as the city fell into the backdrop in his wake. The path crept along for a time, serpentine and carefully planned so that the Elves would not look upon it save for in the correct time, under the correct circumstances. He crested a hill and the road forked, almost like an invitation to turn away or go anywhere else. He could feel the fear, primal and unmitigated, meticulously ingrained down to the very civil engineering. He could understand the aversion. Respect and Fear often overlapped, regardless of cultural differences. 

Alkor continued along the path. At the end, he found the small field of monuments. Unlike other parts of the forest, the willows here were deliberate. Whether they were planted to block out sunlight or the markers were placed strategically, it sent a clear message. Light did not belong in this place. "Hmm..." Alkor knelt, and he reached out to touch one of the many stones. The elven glyphs glittered faintly at the provocation, almost like they wanted to communicate. He pulled his fingers slowly away and looked at them, dimly aware of the presence of soot and ash. A colorful bloom caught his eye- he'd almost missed it with no light to differentiate it from shadows.

"A flower that tethers the souls of the dead to the world of the living," he mused. "They do enjoy their superstitions, at least."

Alkor | HP: 780/780 | EN: 114/114 | DMG: 23 | MIT: 30 | ACC: 5 | EVA: 3 | BH: 42 | LD: 1 | BLT: 32 | BLD: 48 | PARA

Some time had elapsed since Jomei parted ways with him before Alkor returned to the group. They were abuzz with talk of the final fights of the first round. He caught bits and pieces of the conversation as he happened close enough, but voices and words bled together. Alkor was bad at large group activities, in no small part because they overloaded his senses.

The inability to get his footing in the room put him on edge, and he looked for a spot along the wall to set his roots in. He heard his name, several times in fact. It wasn't a familiar voice, and in crowded areas he didn't trust his mind not to play tricks on him. Instead, he looked around and picked faces out of the crowd.

@Koga, surrounded by women, surprisingly. @NIGHTwas one of them, and at a glance, the only one he could place. His first impression of the situation had to have been off, and Koga wasn't flirting with a group of ladies. NIGHT would have kicked his ass for that.

@Lessa was there, too. He hadn't seen her come in, or watched her fight. It made sense though. There had been another tournament once, hadn't there? And she fought in that one, too...? He strained to recall how that had gone, to no avail. It was still nice to see her.

And that meant...

He really didn't know many people.

The world was red.

Heat unimaginable emanated from the belly of the beast Ifrit in earnest homage to its namesake. The resultant concussion force stretched our through the air like tendrils, wildly whipping and thrashing. He watched expressionless as it mindlessly devoured brick and mortar, tearing asunder the very realm that the man at its controls sought to lord over. Alkor was not impressed.

The perspiration that beaded on his neck and brow now were born of the magnitude of this heat and the intensity of his thoughts, bewildered at how to oppose the might of this unexpected, woefully unmatchable weapon now laid bare before them. His grip on Witchfang intensified.

These men and women had made their choice, and inadvertently, so had he.

Grim though this fate might be, he stared implacably on as certain death crawled toward him. All of that time spent improving, honing his skills, ascending through levels- it amounted to death in the face of something unexpected?

The cool, blue light that permeated through the city's Refugee Zone washed over Alkor like a sudden, gentle breeze. Protective power, soothing radiance- something equally unexpected. He did not see the point of origin, not from where he stood. All he could hear were the words of the young Prince.

Quote

"I will assist Gabrandr! All of you need to take the airships and go while they are off-guard! Now might be the best chance we have!" 

And leave the most dangerous work to the people, at that. Alkor turned his attention away from the conniving creature called Lamont. There was nothing left but to finish what they had started. "Where you come from," the Galtean asked suddenly, "do these things have happy endings?"

Alkor paused and reflected on the words for an instant. The ballast fell away, knots undone from the tow line. The ship began to ascend, climbing toward the horizon, toward fate. There was no alternative ending now, no story but the one he had chosen to write. For the first time since the Ninth Floor, Alkor stared death in the face. He could see the molten fire in its throat again, but instead of fear...

"You fight for the ending you get." Alkor spun round with a wicked smirk on his face, the wild glint in his eyes reflective of the heat he saw in the abyss. This time, that fire belonged to him. "I'm here, after all."

In the end, regardless of how tragic the Sword Art Online incident was, no matter how hard the reality he lived in, the fact remained. Thom was still standing. Alkor was still standing. Even with its best attempts to bring him low, he still lived.

The engine screamed at full output now, and the airship rose into the firmament. Alkor watched the clouds part ahead of him and saw Razwell's small cadre of ships impending. "Don't suppose you have a plan for getting us aboard their ships alive?" the man asked, more sure of their cause than before, but still not entirely convinced.

"We knew from the beginning we weren't going to sortie with them in civilian transports," Alkor stated flatly.

"You don't mean-"

He remembered words he'd said to @Koganot so long ago, about the right of the people to be free, and about protecting those people from the powers that sought to exploit them. About the sacrifices people made to find that elusive freedom. In this, Alkor had no doubts.

"Plot a course for the van," he snapped at last, "bring us up to ramming speed."

"If you want them, the only path leads through me," he said, as their weapons careened away from each other and the force of her strikes made him slide backward through snow. "They've watched you kill their friends, they are wounded, they are terrified. Now that they have seen their weaknesses, they are malleable."

Alkor took up his blade in a defensive stance, pensive as he fixed the woman with his stern, stoic's gaze. "Death is not a lesson to the dead," he called hoarsely, his voice at odds with the storm. "The dead learn nothing, and will never grow again. They can never feel the pain or bear the weight of those lives they took. They can never make amends. Vengeance tastes like satisfaction for only a moment. It is not a filling meal. Those families want their loved ones back, they want their memories to mean something- they're not looking for corpses to fill the vacant seat at their table."

Winter threatened to swallow them both whole as the biting gale intensified around them, as though some angry god of frost had been enraged at the clash of their blades. Steam billowed off of Setsuna and he thought she might evaporate into thin air if he took his eyes off her. 

"If you want justice for those who have died, you need to seek it through teaching these killers the error of their ways. You should only kill as the very last resort, only when your victim is wholly irredeemable." He vaguely gestured toward the darkness behind him, his breath turning to smoke in front of his eyes. 

"They have seen what mercy looks like, now," he spoke solemnly, "or do you intend to cut me down to give chase?"

"...date?" Alkor blinked as the comment processed. Jomei had already turned to leave, but he'd struck the proverbial final blow as the idea slowly spread and realization sank in. "Wait, what the heck did he mean by date?" It was clear there was fine print that Alkor hadn't bothered to read, and something sinister was afoot in all of this. If he won the tournament, would he be forced to sit through an agonizing night with some randomly chosen bachelorette?

"Jesus Christ I hope not," he muttered as anxiety blossomed anew. Devoid of another human to pretend around he let his guard fall and his face adopted a look of horror. "He's probably joking, right? People do that, don't they...?"

He moved toward the wall and grabbed one of the posters that hung there, peeled it free, and stared blankly. As he read over it again, he mouthed the words. "Dinner for two...?"

Panic.

"Maybe they'll let me give the prize to someone else?" he pondered aloud. "Or... should I leave? I'm sure there will be other tournaments..."

His voice trailed off as he disappeared down the hall, back toward the staging area. If he was still cold, Alkor had forgotten all about it.

"Easier...?" he repeated the sentiment, his thoughts out of focus for a moment. "I wonder about that."

Alkor considered the man's final comment, though his eyes fled from Jomei again. He hated looking people in the eyes whenever it could be helped. Eye contact felt so unnerving, like someone could see past any number of layers of defense to his exposed heart. He could feel the other man's gaze on him, even if it weren't as intense as many that had come before. He just wanted to escape attention altogether.

To see who you are, Jomei had said. His fingers traced the wooden rail of the bridge, the smoothed cherrywood a reflection of those used in the construction of temple gardens he had often visited. Alkor remembered looking at those, at a thousand years of history or more, and wondering about them in awe. Craftsmen poured their souls into the craft of marvels, iconic architecture that baffled most modern minds. Those artisans knew who they were, and what they wanted from life. They were builders who made the dreams of an Emperor manifest.

What had Alkor built? What could he build? His fingers curled into a fist as those thoughts burned in him.

"Yeah," Alkor replied off hand. "You bet. Any time," he said, as if he was open for business. The reality was, these conversations often ended with posturing, common phrases that people said out of congeniality. He was following the script, and perhaps Jomei had surmised as much.

Still, this was one person he'd met he couldnt hate simply on principle.

He saw the smile on Jomei's face and froze for a split second. What was he to make of something like that? "...It's been good talking to you," he said, and that time, he genuinely meant it. It was good to know that people had Lessa's back, and even if he was looking for more, Alkor had the sense that Jomei would weigh Lessa's well-being above his own self-interest. 

It was good to know that the people in the game who he wanted to see safe and protected, would be.