Waking to Another Sky Ch1 bit – Mirror

~ crossovercreativechaos

I have to bring Asuna up here, Kirito thought, almost grinning as he wiped wet drops off his face. They have a shower!

Whoof. Right now, he wished he could dive under hot water himself. He didn’t feel really dirty, but two years under a helmet had left his hair – well. Yuck.

I don’t think I have time to try and figure out a shower that doesn’t have a touch menu.

But the steamy air was nice, and the shower curtain had to be at least +10 concealment against passing encounters-

Not in Aincrad. Not. In. Aincrad.

The gown came off with some fumbling and a few tears. He glared at the laminated bar-code bracelet on his right forearm, but left it alone. It might be important. Sweatpants-

Well. It was a good thing there was a ledge to sit on by the shower. That was tricky.

The t-shirt and sweatshirt went on a lot easier, though they were much more loose than he thought his mother would be happy with. But they were clothes, and they were gray and black, and that was so much better than helpless white paper.

Straps back over his shoulder, he stepped down from the shower niche into the main bathroom-

Dark shadow in the fog.

Hands shot up to parry and block, as he faced the-

Mirror. Augh.

Kirito heaved a sigh, and wiped fading mist from polished glass. There just weren’t that many mirrors in Aincrad….

Oh.

Not his avatar. This was a thin, pale teenager in gray and black. A real face, with real limp black hair, and all the little imperfections of skin and veins that never made it into the rendering.

I’m not Kirito anymore. I’m Kirigaya Kazuto. Again.

Then why did it feel like typing in someone else’s screen name?

19 thoughts on “Waking to Another Sky Ch1 bit – Mirror”

  4. Then why did it feel like typing in someone else’s screen name?

    Maybe because you haven’t thought of yourself as Kirigaya Kazuto in a while?

    And a little bit because in many ways that Kirigaya Kazuto, the one who logged in Sword Sword Online just anticipating a few hours of fun, is dead. He died so Kirito could survive.

    You are still Kirigaya Kazuto but you will never be that Kirigaya Kazuto ever again. You are different. Even without stuff you probably aren’t aware of yet, you’d be different. Because nobody goes through that much death and danger unchanged.

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  5. Washing your hair without shampoo is not ideal, but water does a good job cleaning the scalp. And yeah, the scalp would probably be a bit gross, except for hardworking dust mites. Yay! But the dandruff or yeast infections or other skin conditions might be pretty bad. No sunlight or airing is bad.

    On the bright side, unwashed hair stops putting out as much oil after a month or so. Sorta like dog fur.

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      2. Maybe NervGears incorporated that metallic stink-absorption and anti-bacterial stuff they put in hiking socks now…..

        And,while we are imagining that, I suppose we could imagine a sort of hairnet in it too.

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  7. I imagine that’s gonna start hitting all the survivors pretty damn hard.

    The ways they deal with it will be… interesting. Though something that might help both survivors and social support workers with that would be getting to talk to Asuna about it. Because she’s probably going to have a similar response when she first looks in a mirror, but Asuna was always her first name. I imagine for her it’s going to be more along the lines of ‘So why does the face in the mirror/Asuna feel like somebody else?’

    I wonder how many of them will be able to come to grips with the fact that it’s because while who they were went and changed, in the world outside SAO everyone thought they stayed the same.

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