Chapter 15: Recurrence

This fight is between the tortoise and the hare. While one side is forced into parrying frantically and retreating in such a manner that his icy feet tussle the snowfall; the hare is barraging the tortoise with swift and skillful strikes, sneaky side steps and severing slices. Shock, panic, and a smidgeon of endurance versus speed and skill.

To my horror, I am finding myself to be the tortoise.

What's up with this guy?! my mind echoes.

You see, for practical reasons two-handed sword users are, as a general rule, tanks. Heavy damage sponges and crucial for boss battles, these players usually don't invest much into agility due to how useless it proves to be as far as keeping your HP high goes. So to speak; tanks don't build their characters to be this fast, or at least, not usually. Even stranger is the fact that the Tin Man isn't using his range to his advantage; he's getting way too close to me. Granted, with blinding speed, but a reckless way of fighting nonetheless. Considering his weapon has a lot more reach than mine, he should be backing off, not charging me head on. He must be seeing red if he's willing to fight like this, either that or he's just more of an idiot than I ever expected.

Damn, he's pissed off. Regardless, I could kill him quite quickly if...no.

I decide to run, hoping to avoid having to kill a TKA member that is undoubtedly close to Jade's brother. Besides, if they find out who did it, there'll be a manhunt, and Tin Man's not worth my time. I turn to flee but end up being forced to dive to the ground a second later when another attack sails towards my upper back. I slide farther out of the dive than I intended and end up skidding, rolling, and bouncing my way down a somewhat icy slope; coming to an abrupt and painful halt at the bottom of the incline. The damage from crashing into the tree is minimal, but I hear the last five or six hit-points needed to bring me down into the low red zone disappear from my health bar with a depressing beep. The Tin Man is awkwardly sliding down the hill towards me, his sword raised once again in a charging stance. With his determination, I won't be able to just call it quits and run for it.

No choice then. Time to get serious.

I flick open my menu and equip my gauntlet at lightning speed; the dark blue metal materializes instantly and clamps around my forearm with satisfying pressure. I flex my fingers as I re-accustom myself to the extra weight and find myself smiling, it's like that heavy watch I always wore on the other side: I feel unnatural without this on my arm.

Oh, how I've missed you.

The swordsman's stance shifts into a lunge and his Silver Blade shines a bright blue as he moves in for the killing blow. The bark of the tree rustles my neck as I prop myself up, and I lift my metallic hand to my neck, pretending to be dazed.

I have to time it perfectly...

The blade sails towards my head at blinding speed, but months of practice deflecting weapons with my hands pay off when I swipe my left hand towards the side of the blade. It's only a nudge, but it's enough to knock it off course and...

The two-handed sword sinks deep into the evergreen and its hilt smacks into the tree from the force of the blow. With his weapon impaled into an inanimate object inches from my head, the Tin Man's helmet turns towards me in awe at what I just did. I start to move for the Heaven Splitter and the walking spam dispenser hurriedly snaps his attention back to the sword which he begins to desperately attempts to release it from the wood. I don't give him the time.

I deliver a sharp kick to his gut, and although my foot bounces somewhat painfully off the plate-mail the wall of metal in front of me does stumble backward, letting go of his two-handed sword completely this time. I drag the Heaven Splitter into Uppercut before he can react and run it across the plate mail for noticeable damage. To my satisfaction, the hit sends him tumbling through the snow with a deep red line on his armour. I charge after the mountain of heavy armour with ending this quickly in mind.

The Tin Man regains his balance surprisingly fast after the combo, planting his foot to stop himself from stumbling backwards in his heavy armour. I charge him before he can regain his balance, bringing the Heaven Splitter, now a bolt of green light, down in a «Vertical», fully expecting the sound of splitting armour to follow.

What comes next, to my surprise, is a noise equivalent to a frying pan hitting the stove. Using both his bulky gauntlets, the food preserving hulk has stopped the Heaven Splitter, the bright green it was shining has been replaced by its usual assortment of obsidian in the middle and crimson on the edges.

What? That's my tri-

The tin man knees me in the gut with his bulky armour, and while I'm keeled over with my eyes on the snow I feel his left hand shift from the Heaven Splitter to my wrist, grabbing it firmly to stop me from retaliating. I reach up and attempt to punch him hard in the face, but he catches my other hand mid strike. Despite the strength of the punch manages to keep his balance, albeit with a measure of difficulty.

Dammit, dammit, dammit!

He lets go of my gauntleted hand and swings for my face, but I lean backwards, dodging it and dragging my now free left arm up into a punch which smashes into his left shoulder. He is knocked backwards and lets go of my wrist, allowing me to drag the Heaven Splitter leftward and away from him. His hand rushes to grab something from behind his back, but I bring the Heaven Splitter across and towards his head in a back handed strike.

Got you!

Then, the Tin Man does something eerie. Making no attempt to block it, he backsteps away from the blow, a move that will prove fatal if it fails. The tip of the Heaven Splitter catches his helmet and tears through it. I watch the armour explode from the huge amount of damage caused by the blow, but through the light blue shards I see it owner wields an terrifyingly familiar malicious grin. The dodge worked. Moreover...

I'm glad.

They plant their foot onto the snow in the millisecond after my attack misses, and during my ability's cool down I'm hit with a tackle worthy of a rugby player. Not a moment after my attack missed and now I'm being pushed through the air by the hunk of purple armour; destination: the cold, hard ground. What this hunk of metal will do when we touchdown I have no way of knowing, the only certainty I have is that it'll probably hurt. The adrenaline is slowing time down to a crawl, allowing me to lay witness to the dark, long blonde hair trailing in locks behind my opponents head. Beyond that the trees sway, perhaps by only half a degree in the time I am falling. My eyes open wide, we hang suspended above the ground in this adrenaline filled eternity, only coming to a close when I come crashing down into the snow and a metric ton of armour lands atop my torso soon after.

I hear the sound of a weapon being hastily drawn, no doubt the same one they were reaching for earlier, and I let everything play over in my mind as their sword prickles my neck . The inexperience with two-handed fighting, and then of course the abnormally high agility. Hell, the fact that they could get through the portal in the first place should have tipped me off. Well, screw it. When I open my eyes, either my suspicions will be confirmed, or I'll be seriously minced meat. Maybe both...

Probably both.

This time I instantly see that the blade is only a few inches away from my neck. I take advantage of the moment, for the second time, to observe the weapon: it's straight, wielding slightly jagged edges and an intricate runic pattern that runs down its body. Although it is not gilded, it is, doubtless, almost as beautiful as the Heaven Splitter, the spectacular obsidian blade with crimson coloured edges.

I move my eyes up to where my attacker would be, daring not to move my head due to the possibility that such an action would result in my abrupt–and perhaps deserved–end. Unlike the light blue armour I first saw her in, or the white armour–damn, that was a good fit– I helped her buy, the purple hunk of metal she is currently wearing doesn't do justice to the athletic and fair skinned body that is currently weighing down on my abdomen. My eyes draw up even farther, and past a layer of dirty blonde hair lie extremely feminine features, accentuated by two beautiful emerald green eyes which stare back into mine with no shortage of malice.

"Long time no see, Jade." I choke out, the hint of a grin edging its way onto my face.

She has yet to utter a word, yet she still lies atop me, the blade pointed straight at my jugular. If not for the whispering wind and the barely audible patter of the snow touching down on the already icy ground the silence would likely consume us both entirely. Feeling it digging away at my soul, I open my mouth to speak, but close it again.

What can I possibly say? A TKA died in that fight.

"Hey..." I venture.

"Yes!?" She snaps back at me.

Wow, deja-vu.

"Mind if I check my inventory? I'll keep it on public so-" I attempt what I did the first time I was in this situation, but this time the tip of the Laaien, her blade, only comes an inch closer to my neck. I take note that with her left hand pinning my arm down and the elbow on her sword arm bent, all she has to do to snuff out my life is extend her arm; I wouldn't be fast enough to stop it.

"I'll kill you if you move this time. I swear I will." Her tone is stern and level-headed, but I take comfort in the idea that if I don't move, I might live. However, the tip of her crimson weapon prickling my neck reminds me that this ray of hope might not be worth much at all.

"Okay, okay. I'll stay still." I reply, sounding somewhat meek despite my best attempt not to.

"I ask questions, you answer. Is that understood?" Her rhetorical question and demanding tone is nearly enough for me to say "no", but I suspect she might actually kill me if I did.

Cheer up a little?

"Yeah, sure. I'll sign autographs later, if you'd like." my efforts to take the seriousness out of the situation through half-baked sarcasm reward me with a full-baked slap to the face. It does far more damage to my ego than to my health, but with my hitpoints this low any damage is heavy damage.

"I'm not joking." She states what is now painfully obvious to me.

"Understood." I give the only smart answer in this situation.

She stares me down, and I examine the irate girl who has her knees to my sides and a sword at my neck. I'm briefly reminded of a morning in which I woke to find myself in this exact same position, although she wanted to kill me for a much-less justifiable reason that time. The memory is somewhat bitter-sweet, and I have half the mind to mention it before I realize that such a comment could very well get me killed. Her question seems to be taking ages to appear and thus far she has only stared daggers at me, as if she's racking her mind for question. Yet her eyes betray her; she's just trying to figure out what to ask first. I sit there patiently, wanting to avoid kicking the already agitated beehive at all costs.

"Why?" is all she asks. Yep, that's all she wrote.

Oh crap...

"The Gathering's a meeting for orange players to trade and–Jade, I'm so sorry, it's just that–well, I stayed behind to fight becau..." I trail off as I see her materialize a crystal into her free hand. Light red. Heal. My eyebrows inadvertently raise in confusion, and then shift to 'absolutely perplexed' when she shoves the crystal into my face.

"Heal." She mutters, and my health shoots up from near-zero back to full. I am forced to stare at her in bewilderment, as her hair is covering her face and her head is bowed..

Is she...crying? I can't believe I got it right on the first try.

Cautiously, I lift my hand up from the snow, reaching towards her. I see the gauntlet on it, lower it back down and begin to raise my right, leaving my Heaven Splitter behind on the ground. Flakes of snow fall gently from my bare hand as I hesitantly reach towards her face. Honestly, I'm not sure why I think touching her face will help when my hand is this cold, but hopefully the gesture will comfort her. My fingertips drift through the cold, misty air towards her cheeks, gliding towards the wall of flowing locks that blocks me from seeing her face. I gently brush her hair aside to reveal her perfect lips which are... drawn up in the nastiest sneer she has yet pulled .

Oh, okay...

Yeah, I'm pretty much dead.

Her left hand shoots up and grabs my sword hand, twisting my fingers back and launching me into a bout of excruciating pain. I reach over for the Heaven-Splitter with my left hand, but when her sword comes crashing down into my shoulder a torrent of deep red polygons leak skyward from the wound and I suddenly realize what the heal crystal was for. With my left arm pinned down and my right hand exploring angles it has carefully avoided its entire life, I really can't do much to get out of this.

I can't believe you fell for it, you idiot.

That's what her eyes say, or perhaps this is just me projecting my own thoughts onto her face. I grimace as my HP slowly start to deplete, although it will be quite a while until it hits zero at this rate. Whether she healed me out of some sort of twisted kindness and doesn't actually want to kill me or whether she is just sadistic and wishes upon me a slow death is not yet clear, but I decide to try my luck and protest.

"What the hell?! I answered your ques-" I pleadingly remark.

"Try again." She cuts me off bluntly, drilling not daggers but icicles into the back of my head with her emerald eyes.

"What?" I blurt out stupidly, earning me the sword embedded in my shoulder a nice twist. I grimace but manage to stop myself from crying out.

"Answer. The. Question." With each word she leans down closer to me, her eyes so frigid that I feel like scurrying down into the snow for warmth and her 'smile' gloomy enough to swallow the sun in eternal darkness. If I was a total idiot I'd be flustered at how close she is right now, her face hanging inches over mine, but this only means she's poised to bite my head off in a heartbeat. To make matters worse, its impossible to escape her glare from this close and although she is 'holding my hand' the term 'death-grip' would be more accurate.

"I did!"

"No, you didn't. You answered the wrong question."

You just said 'why?' for craps sake! It could be anything!
'Why is the sky blue?'
'Why do kids love Cinnamon Toast Crunch?'
'Why do I have a crazy bitch on my lap who just might kill me?'.
There's no way in hell I'll get it right!

Her question is a bloody onion: shrouded deep under layer after layer of ambiguity and making me weep as I am forced to dig through it.

"You can't be serious." I murmur in exasperation, but she just closes her eyes, puts on a dangerous 'smile', and then nods lazily in response. I open my mouth to blurt out yet another protest, but she twists my sword-hand and bends my finger back in a way that would without a doubt break it if this were real life. I let out a sharp breath and shut up myself up.

There's no way she isn't enjoying this. Sadist!

"You have 10 seconds." She draws a dagger from a leg strap on her bulky armour and begins to move it towards my neck.

"Jade..." I say her name in the naive hope it will bring her to her senses. Unfortunately, I feel the steel press against my neck and somehow the steel feels even colder than the snow I'm enveloped in.

Don't. Don't. Don't.

"9..." She's counting slowly, thank the stars. The only thing I can do now is blurt out every apology I can think of.

"I'm sorry for being at the Gathering, now would you kind–"

"Wrong. 8..."

"This is serious bullshit, you do know that, right?"

"I don't care. 7..." the knife's edge presses down harder into my neck, and I shiver at the thought of the damage I'd take if she slit my throat. Unlike the last few times Jade has been in a situation where she could kill someone, I know she's serious now.

"Look, I didn't know people would die. I stayed behind to help the others escape, I swear." I lie through my teeth.

Hah, you just didn't think it would be a TKA member. Hypocrite. You should just let her count down to zero and end it all.

She lets off some pressure from my neck, looks at me as if I was a particularly boring insect, and shakes her head in a very defined 'no'.

"Apology accepted. But not the right one. 6..."

"Fuck, Jade! I don't know! I really don't know!"

Then why don't you just stop trying? You're orange scum, after all. Wouldn't dying be nice?

"Try harder. 5..."

Think think think think think. I scour my mind for memories, trying to pinpoint moments which I may or may not have screwed up. Of course, this is Jade, so this could be anything from looking at her funny to having a verbal spar with Prodotes. To make matters worse the part of me that knows that my dying would solve a lot of people's problems is obscuring my thoughts like a rain-cloud blotting out the sun.

"4..."

C'mon!

"3..."

"I apologize fo-" my mind goes blank halfway through, and I see her expression shift into that scary kind of disappointment that comes before a break-up, a cut-off of ties, or in this rare case brutal murder.

"2..."

"Look..." I rack my memories for something, anything, but to my horror nothing emerges to the surface of my mind.

"1..." In that moment, as I feel the knife start to press into my neck, I burst out the last thing that comes to mind.

"I'm sorry for what I did in Aradu!"

The knife stops short before it breaks my skin, and she leans back away from my neck, putting her hands on her lap.

"Ah, good. I really thought I was about to kill a total idiot. Well, I'm glad I didn't have to. You sure took your time, though..." she sighs in relief and puts her hand on the hilt of the Laaien. She begins dragging it out of my shoulder-blade and it feels like heaven to finally have this damn thing out of my body. She isn't exactly smiling, but her face has softened up and I find I'm no longer afraid of having my life cut short, she's going back to normal. I'm so damn glad that...

Wait. Hold up a second!

My sense of self-preservation and disbelief collide, battle it out, and my self preservation concedes defeat. Disbelief, in its triumph, embarks on a journey that could get me killed.

"You were that mad at me over that joke?! Really?!" I spit out.

"...what do you mean, 'over that joke'?" She squints her eyes at me and I see her lips draw into a flat, emotionless line across her face. I try to reel back, but with my head in the snow all I do is sink in another few centimetres. I feel like a hunter who has shot at a boar and missed, forced to keep his gaze fixed on the boar's tusks as it charges him. If I miss again...

This could be bad.

"Uh... well, it was just a joke, you know? I just... I didn't think you'd be so embarrassed when I gave you those er–clothes, in the middle of the road. I'm sorry." I choke out pathetically.

Sheets of paper aren't as white as her face is right now. Her mouth is a line, her cheekbones are placed somewhere in-between "stunned silence" and "pure disbelief", which could be a good thing... I guess. If not for the fire burning in her emerald eyes and the fire burning on the side of my face in the form of her fresh palm print, I wouldn't be entirely sure how she felt about my statement.

"You're sorry about THAT?! Do you think I was angry over such a stupid, childish joke? Do I really seem that high strung and touchy to you?" Jade's words catch me by surprise in a way it hasn't before; her words are not those icy, sharp combinations of syllables that she throws out on a regular basis, nor are they mocking, vile little creatures which try to mimic me. If anything, she sounds... hurt.

Uh, what?

To my surprise, the tears I was expecting from her don't come. She just slides back, dropping off me and collapsing onto her back in the snow, her head thrown back in laughter. Her voice rings out across the 41st floor and I slowly drag the Laaien the last few inches of my shoulder, to my relief she makes no move to stop me.

Nevertheless...

"Jade?" I inquire nervously, deeply worried and not feeling the relief that someone who is no longer facing certain death should be around this time. There's a ring to Jade's laugh that tells me she finds this more so tragic than hilarious, and it worries me more than being on the sharp end of her sword, for unknown reasons.

"Hah, to think I'd hope for even a second that you'd know what I'm angry about. Well, that's okay I guess. When I think about it, we don't know each other that well, after all."

"Sorry, I don't follow." I can't believe I'm not just dropping this, but I feel like if we don't talk now we'll part ways and that'll be that. Whether I like it or not, I at least want an explanation for what she did...oh.

No, no way. She can't possibly want an apology for that.

"You know, my brother has something he says a lot here in SAO: 'If a man does you wrong and he is aware of what he's doing, he is a cruel man. If a man does you wrong and doesn't even know it, he's simply an idiot.' says it like it's Gospel, seriously. 'Kill the cruel, wise up the idiots' he says that too. You'll be glad to know I don't consider you a cruel man, Klaes." Jade rambles with her eyes closed, her head resting on a pile of snow and her dirty blonde locks spread in all directions. Nevertheless, I ignore the chance to just drop it and decide to push it further."

"Jade... what are you angry about?" A risky question, but one I have to ask. It's itching at the back of my mind, but I don't want to believe it. I think I'll kill her if she asks me to feel bad about that

"You were right about the Aradu part." she muses.

"I know." The directness of my statement takes her slightly off guard, and she cocks her head sideways, propping her head up on her hands.

"It's just...I didn't think you'd just ditch me like that, you know? I mean, I get that orange players are fickle creatures and all, but still..." Before she has even finished her sentence, I start to arch upwards.

My hand grabs the back of her neck with a firm grip and I draw her towards me forcefully as I lean forth, stopping a few inches from her. We are suspended in motion excruciatingly close to each other, my sight set on the two emeralds before me, those two surprised eyes, perfectly placed in the midst of her reddened features. Her face is flushed red from all the blushing her it seems her entire expression is quivering before me When we're this close, there's really no way out of it. Since I've gotten to this point, I can't just hesitate and flee at the last second. It's stupid; hell, it could get me killed, but now that I've gotten this far there's only one thing to do. Yes, when I'm like this, it'll be...

A lot easier to yell at her

"Who the FUCK do you think you are?!" hot air gushes out of my mouth as I shout and hits Jade straight in the face..

"W-wha..." Jade, confused beyond all belief, tries to pull away from me and my anger, but I maintain a firm grip on her neck and keep her in place. I shift my hands onto her platemail and then push her off me, into the snow behind her. I land on her pining her down and startling her further. If she were a sheep right now, I'd be a wolf. This is, granted, a reversal of the usual roles, but I'm not swayed by her expression in the slightest. I'm too pissed off to be.

Don't try that with me, you vicious vixen.

"For all your lecturing about 'wise up the idiots' you prove to be the worst of them all, don't you?! You want ME to apologize?! For what, exactly?!" I practically roar at her and she shuts her eyes, shifting her head away from me in an attempt to escape my rage, but I continue nonetheless: "Oh! I know! Maybe I should repent over being angry after having to fight the field boss alone! Right! My bad, Jade! I APOLOGIZE for believing even for a second I could count on you"!

I do not remember the last time I was this angry, and despite the pretty face before mine, I cannot help but to raise my voice even further. I'm being an arsehole and I know it, but if there was ever a woman who warranted my wrath, it's Jade right now.

"Please.." she mutters.

"Please! Please what?!" I feel bad for a second, maybe two, when she flinches at my and closes her eyes as if I just hit her, but I don't soften my face up. The next time she opens them she does it cautiously, at a frightened pace. The redness in her face is still there, and I can see tears are forming in the wells of her eyes. I don't care. I think I don't care.

"Klaes..." when she says that, it's as if my name is a magic word. Although it's only my SAO nickname, the soft, trembling, scared tone she utters it with is enough to catch me completely off guard. This is a side to Jade she has never really shown; granted, we only traveled together for about a week, but I have never seen this one before. Her demeanour has sliced me open and now my anger is gushing out of the wound. I try to say something, anything, but I find that I'm better at being cruel than taking a step back so I fail in my quest. It turns out she's the one who speaks next

"...you're way too close..." she puts her index finger on my lips, and then I realize why she had reddened earlier. My cheeks flush with blood in an instant, and she shoots a cheeky grin at my blushing face. The fact that her cheeks are also slightly rosy only makes it worse...

Gragh. Flustered, flustered, flustered!

I mutter some kind of half-arsed apology and let go of her arms, trying to pull away from her as quickly as possible. To my surprise I feel her metal gauntlets dig into my back and she pulls me down into a hug before I can stop her.

Woah!

With us separated by a mountain of annoyingly bulky armour I might as be embraced by a giant can of Coke, but with our cheeks pressing against each other side by side I understand the gesture. I hesitate for a second, but then opt to slip my arms in-between the snowy floor and the armour to hug her back. I regret this immediately, as she probably can't feel my hug anyway and all this is doing is crushing my hands under the ton of plate-mail.

We lie there for a few more seconds without moving or speaking, just stuck there in the biting cold holding each other, the crimson draining from my face as I calm myself down. She lets out what can only be a happy sigh, although I'm not sure if I believe it myself, and then nudges me slightly upwards. I drag my hands out from under her, letting the blood rush back into them and push up off the snow. I begin to rise away from her and she smiles the most earnest smile I've seen from her thus far, but I can't really smile in response.

I am still angry, after all... a bit.

Before I can get back up, she grabs my collar and keeps me there a foot away, grasping me as if I went any further away I would just run, ending our friendship with a happy memory. My face flushes in an incredibly slight fashion, but she catches on and grins wildly at me. I've had girlfriends before, and the last few minutes remind me a bit too much of long Saturday evenings on my parents couch. Of course, that was a lot more than hugging.

She's being so Goddamn weird.

"So, we both think it's the other person's fault, huh..." she states.

"Yep." I concede that yes, it is true.

She thinks I shouldn't have run, I think she screwed me over. I don't understand her view. We're both looking at the same thing but we're running in opposite directions, driving the distance between us to even greater levels.

"Does that mean we're not parallel?"

"It would seem to be so. We are anti-parallel."

"And if I told you it was a misunderstanding, then what?" her comment sparks my curiosity.

"Then I'd ask you to explain." but I can't just take someone's word for it.

"That's easier than you'd expect."

"Oh really?"

"Yes really." She replies firmly, and then she pulls up a teal crystal, practically shoving it into my face.

Ah, of course.

A message record crystal, hers to be more precise. Although it's only sound, the ones we wore in Aradu should have captured everything. If there's a way to show the 'other side of the story', so to speak, then this is the perfect way to do it. I nod at her as if to say 'okay', and she nods back. There is a certain nervousness to this situation, a fact that hangs up above all of this.

If we can't figure this out and clear things up, we will depart and our friendship will be over for good. I don't want that, and it seems she doesn't either. Pretty much everything lies on our explanations of what happened and those lie within the record crystals. I have mine, which I never actually gave to the Knights of Blood, in the room where I'm staying.

The crystal before me and the crystal below me, down on the 34th floor? They'll define everything.

Well, not much to it.

"Right then. Shall we?" I pull myself up onto my feet and she lets go of my collar, letting me stand back up.

"Where to?" She hops onto her feet and knocks some of the snow off her armour.

"You'll see. Let's get moving." I take the first step forward, and I hear her footsteps begin behind me. Because of the armour she's wearing they are a lot heavier than they were on that first day, but the feeling of deja vu clings to me. This was the place where it all started, the place where it could have ended, and maybe, just maybe...

Note:

Wow! I actually stuck to my own deadline! HOLD THE PRESS!

Seriously though, that was surprisingly satisfying. As is, this chapter probably has a few rough spots that I'll iron out in the next few coming days. My next chapter will be in about a month. Now, I know what you're thinking 'why such a long time when you did one in two weeks?'. Well, I've decided I'm going to re-work the first few chapters.

Nothing plot-wise will be changed, I'm just going to make it more enjoyable to read. The most major change that could possibly come out of this is the merging of a chapter or two to make chapter length more consistent. Once again, this won't change anything the characters have done, what they're like, or how they treat each other. I'm basically just making the first few chapters, which I wrote with a very half-arsed attitude, better. Reviews have said I should do it, casual readers have messaged me with the same sentiment, and I find myself in physical pain when reading chapters 3 and 4.

Basically, don't expect to hear back from me till March. If you re-read it you'll see the changes, but no new content until then. On another note: the next chapter or two will be dialogue heavy. Brace yourself if you deeply dislike characters developing their relationships and how they treat each other(no, this does notentail random romance).