Jar of Hearts

Chapter One: A Father's Grief

A/N:

In my last update, I said my next update would either be to The Ace of Spades or to The Kendo Club: Playing for Keeps, but I never said that I wouldn't publish something new before then, right? In all seriousness, I just came up with this idea yesterday, and it wouldn't get out of my head. You know how it is with me. The idea doesn't leave until I write down, and then I have to share it.

Anyway, you may have noticed that romance is not in the genre settings this time, which is pretty rare for me. It's a long way off, but there will be some romance in this story, though I don't think it'll be major. Thus, I decided not to add it as a genre, since the family and adventure genres are more appropriate for this story anyway.

I guess that's about it! If you're still interested, I'll see you at the bottom!

The jingling of bells rang throughout the smith shop as the front door opened, a man clad in all-black attire entering into the customer area. He wore no armor, a very odd choice for a sword-wielding warrior such as himself. Instead, he wore a long, black trench coat made from the skin of the Blackwyrm Dragon, a beast said to have impenetrable scales.

Before the door could close, the man pushed it back open, making way for a small child with long, dark hair and vibrant gray eyes. She wore a white sundress, a stark contrast to the all-black apparel of the man smiling down at her.

"Welcome to Lisbeth's Smith Shop!" a cheery voice said from the opening door in the back of the shop. Soon enough, a girl with short, russet hair and matching eyes emerged, dusting off her red and white dress as she walked up to the counter. "How can I help— oh, if it isn't Kirito!"

"Yo, Liz," the black-clad man known as Kirito said, his steel-gray eyes losing a little of their shine as he looked up from the little girl who now clung onto his left hand with her right. "I see you removed the pink dye from your hair, so you must have finally realized how ridiculous it looked, right?"

Though his words alone may have held some hurt, the joking tone he uttered them with left no doubt that he meant no harm by them. His soft smile made it known to all in the room that the girl he was speaking to was one of his closest friends; he almost never smiled at anyone but the little girl who stood beside him unless the person he was speaking to held a special spot in his heart.

"Hello, Ms. Lisbeth," the little girl said, letting go of Kirito's hand and walking over to the counter to greet her blacksmith friend. "How have you been?"

Lisbeth smiled at the question, watching as the little girl swiftly leapt over the counter and pulled her into a fierce bear-hug – well, as fierce as a ten-year-old girl can give. She returned the embrace in earnest, before letting go and answering with, "I've been doing very well, Yui. Your daddy hasn't gotten himself into too many perilous situations lately, has he?"

"Well…"

Before the little girl known as Yui could retell the latest of her father's grand adventures, he interrupted her, not wanting to incur the anger of the blacksmith before him. "Nothing too dangerous, Liz," he said, smiling nervously as he finally started walking up to the counter; he knew that he had about a five percent chance of Lisbeth actually buying his lie, but he still needed her to maintenance his swords, so he couldn't run away just yet.

Though he knew the smith didn't believe him in the slightest, he accepted her decision not to push for answers with much gratitude. Instead, Lisbeth chose to talk about Yui, telling Kirito, "Your daughter is getting more and more like you in terms of power and speed each day, Kirito. I remember when we were kids; you acted just like she does now. Aside from appearance, she's the spitting image of you when you were younger."

"Let's just hope she doesn't turn out like I am now," Kirito joked, though anyone who knew him well could sense the grave seriousness behind his words, even if his jovial tone and light laughter did nothing to suggest it.

"So, what brings you two here today?" Lisbeth finally asked, trying to lighten the tension that had made its way into the room.

Kirito smiled a genuine smile, walking over to the russet-haired blacksmith and reaching into his coat's inner pockets. He pulled out two black, beaten-up swords that seemed much too long to fit in any pockets, let alone the relatively small pockets of his coat. But that was just one of the oddities of his attire: a magical ability that allowed him to store anything of any size in his coat.

"I was hoping you could fix these up," he said, handing the two blades to his exclusive smith. "As you can see, some major restorations need to be made."

When he let go of the two swords, their weight sent Lisbeth's hands plummeting to the counter, nearly crushing them in the process. When Kirito saw this, he quickly grabbed them again, taking them off of her hands in a flash.

"Sorry about that…" he apologized, giving a nervous laugh. "I forgot about how heavy these are to normal people."

"No kidding," Lisbeth responded agitatedly, a grimace on her face as she blew on her hands. "Those things have to be at least fifty pounds!"

"The heavier they are, the harder they hit," Kirito said happily, walking around the counter. "But to be exact, they're actually fifty-three pounds."

"Thank you, Mr. Clarifier," the blacksmith said, sarcasm dripping from her tone. "Anyway, let's go in back to where my equipment is."

"Sounds good," Kirito said, looking over to Yui and motioning for her to come along. "Let's go in back, Yui."

After bidding the russet-haired blacksmith farewell, the father and daughter exited the shop, strolling out into the crowded city streets of Lindas. As always, Yui held her father's hand gently, reminding him that he was not alone in the world.

"Hey, Daddy?" Yui queried as they walked, looking up at Kirito with pleading eyes. "Can we go to the house for the night?"

By 'the house,' Yui was referring to the house that Kirito owned, but almost never entered. The only times he ever went into his house were when Yui requested it, which always led to a trip down painful memory lane. But even so, he could never refuse his daughter, who bore an uncanny resemblance to…

"Sure, Yui," Kirito replied, taking a turn towards the residential area of the city. "Let's go… home."

Though he said, 'home,' he didn't truly consider the place to be his home. He considered it to be a house he used to live in, one that only brought pain every time he entered it. But even so, he would go in…

For Yui's sake.

Standing before his old, two-story house took Kirito way back, back to happier times, times when she was still with him. In short, it hurt him deeply to be there. And yet, despite the pain in his heart, he still found himself opening the door and holding it ajar for his daughter to enter before him.

After all, he could never tell her, 'no.'

Yui went in immediately, looking around the house like it was the first time she had ever been there. She never got tired of looking at her parents' old things; the whole house was like a treasure trove of their history.

She had never met her mother, but she already knew more about her than most people who knew her when she was around. Kirito would tell her stories of their time together, so it was almost like Yui knew her mother, even though the most she had ever seen of her were in the few portraits of her and Kirito that hung on the walls of the house.

After Kirito entered the house, his steel-gray eyes having gained a sad gleam that Yui knew all too well, she looked him directly in the eyes and asked one thing:

"Can you tell me about Mommy?"

After getting settled down in the living room, both father and daughter sitting on the love seat that he used to share with her, he began to tell tales of long ago.

"Your mother was a wonderful person. Immeasurably kind, incredibly strong with a spear, and incomparably beautiful. She was perfect. I met her thirteen years ago, when…"

Rrgh… this isn't looking good, Kirito thought, wiping the blood from his lip with his left hand. The dark monstrosity he was currently staring down, known as the Blackwyrm Dragon, had really given him a run for his money. After just a few minutes of fighting, he had almost no strength left, and he still hadn't managed to land so much as a scratch on the beast before him.

Well, it really wasn't much of a surprise; the Blackwyrm Dragon's scales were said to be impenetrable by mortal weapons. The only things that could pierce through it were the divine or demonic weapons scattered across the world, and there were only thirty-five of each known to exist. And of course, Kirito didn't have a single one.

He could see the dragon preparing to unleash a breath attack on him. This was it; he was going to die. There was no way he would survive this attack. He would be burnt to a crisp in mere seconds, and he didn't even have enough stamina left to dodge.

Kirito closed his steel-gray eyes, mentally preparing himself for the attack. Now, he wasn't a religious person by any means, but at the moment, he happened to be praying to just about every deity he could think of to have mercy on him in the afterlife.

"KRAAAAAAAH!"

This was not the sound that Kirito had been expecting. He had expected a fierce roar, followed by a blast of black flame that would end his life once and for all. Instead, he got a scream of terror, followed by the feeling of a delicate hand on his shoulder.

"Hey, are you okay?" a feminine voice said from behind Kirito, making him open his eyes. He saw a spear lodged in the neck of the Blackwyrm Dragon before him, shocking him to the core. Something had pierced the dragon's scales. When he turned around to face who he presumed to be the owner of the spear, he saw…

The most beautiful girl he had ever seen. Midnight-blue hair that shone with brilliance in the moonlight came down to her shoulders, accentuating her kind emerald eyes quite nicely. She wore a blue, long-sleeved shirt, partially-covered by a navy blue chest plate that still managed to show off her curvy figure well enough to captivate Kirito more than he had ever been by a woman before.

When he realized he was clearly ogling her, the ebony-haired warrior slowly and shakily rose to his feet, using his sword for support. "I'm fine," he whispered, giving the beautiful maiden a weak smile.

"Don't be stupid," she said, her hands starting to glow a light blue as she hovered them over Kirito's body. "Here, I'll heal you, and then we can fight this thing together."

Just as Kirito prepared to describe the fight, he noticed a familiar weight on his right shoulder. When he looked down, he found Yui, his one and only beloved daughter, leaning on his shoulder for support as her chest slowly and evenly rose and fell with each breath she took.

She must have been more tired than I thought, Kirito mused, his steel-gray eyes softening at the sight of his little one sleeping on his shoulder. For only a moment, he thought he saw her sleeping there, not his daughter, making a solitary tear slowly run down his left cheek.

After wiping his tear away, Kirito gently shook her shoulder with his left arm, rousing her ever-so-slightly from her slumber. "Yui, it's time to go to bed," he whispered gently, smiling when she reached her arms out and wrapped them around his neck.

"All right, princess," he replied to Yui's unspoken request, picking her up and standing to go to his room. After all this time, the little girl still slept with him; after all, he was all she had, and vice versa, and she feared what might happen if he tried to sneak out to train without her.

When the two-person family arrived at Kirito's old bedroom, he set Yui down on the bed, then gently pulled the covers out from under her before putting them back over her. Crawling into the bed himself soon after, the ebony-haired man gazed at his daughter with soft eyes until she began speaking in a quiet, half-asleep tone.

"Do you think I'll ever get to meet Mommy?" she asked him, clearly still mostly dreaming. Even so, Kirito decided to answer her.

"Someday, when the time is right, I'm sure you will."

When he saw a smile on his daughter's face, the doting father donned a determined expression, though he knew that she couldn't see it. He thought one, final thing before he himself drifted off to sleep.

Sooner than you think… because I'm going to bring her back.

A/N:

Yeah, that just happened. Sorry to those of you who wanted Kirisuna, by the way. I'm just not in the mood to write it at the moment, and I really haven't been for a long time, which explains the halt in progress on FESRSM, Passive versus Active, and Life of the Party. (All three of those are Kirisuna stories of mine, for those of you who don't know.)

Anyway, I guess all that needs to be said now is the disclaimer, so I'll get on with that and then let you all get back to your lives!

I don't own the Sword Art Online light novel series, any of its adaptations, or any of the things/characters I use from them. If I did, do you really think I'd be writing crappy FanFiction right about now? Yeah, that's right. Walk away, Aniplex.

See ya later!