Chapter Text
Misumi stood in a particularly dark office with light sensors that would turn off with no one in the room, but would still turn off if there is no movement detected from the sensors. She was in the room for quite awhile, and sitting still and silently. She stretched her back ever so slightly in caution of not wanting to turn on the lights. This lab was within the Touto Insisitute of Technology, she had gotten a message from Professor Shigemura to wait within this room for someone to attend to her.
The sun was setting, so barely any natural light was coming in through the windows, making a bunch of shadows from the blinds cascade onto the floor. All of them striking onto each object. Misumi looked up at the ceiling tiles before she heard footsteps approaching the door. With a click sound, the door opened and all the lights illuminated the room. Adjusting her eyes, Misumi looked up to the person and saw another girl a little below her height holding a box in her arms and dressed in casual clothing.
“Hello, Misumi Tozawa, how are you today?”
The girl had said as she placed the box onto one of the tables near her. Misumi quickly stood up and gave a short bow.
This girl was right around her age and attended the same high school as she did. She didn’t know her until she got out of the death game Sword Art Online, as Misumi’s father decided that he wanted her to finish high school at Aeterna rather than go to the fast built Survivor’s school. Since she didn’t know her in middle school, it was apparent that the girl transferred over to Aeterna High School when Misumi was still in the game. It was possible that she just didn’t know her because she wasn’t a well rounded person in middle school and often strictly ignored others, except for her best friend at the time, Asuna Yuuki.
Misumi thought that Asuna was pretty popular, however, now comparing her to this girl, she almost feels as if she shadows Asuna's image that she once had at Aeterna. Maybe that was what she was going for and it was a scary feeling. Misumi could only chuckle, no it wasn’t possible for her to be in their middle school class, because Misumi would know that Asuna would fuss about her. Besides…
This girl must be some prodigy, she beats Asuna’s previous scores as well as Misumi’s, ranking her first in their exams, so if she were in their middle school class, her and Asuna would have seen her in the rankings. And what she knew, she was a tech genius, but it was natural, she is the heir to Kamura, a big electronic company that is in head with RECT.
“Hi, Shikimi Kamura, good evening.”
Shikimi nodded her head in a greeting, she started opening the box, “I heard that you were having trouble with your exosuit, is that correct?”
Misumi hummed amicably. A while back, Eiji had gotten a call from Professor Shigemura to help him test out some suit for whatever reason that Misumi didn’t know. Later down the line, Misumi ended up also getting a call from Eiji saying that they wanted a female tester for the exosuit. As she was about to decline, he had mentioned that they’ll pay a large sum. At that opportunity to gain some money, Misumi shrugged her shoulders and accepted.
At that time, Misumi felt like she was being left in the dark by Eiji, Shigemura, and even Shikimi. It was werid to just make a suit that’ll enhance the body’s endurance, it was great fun though, Misumi could glide on her feet with little to no exertion. However, it had come to a stop when her right arm couldn’t move along with her robot part. She could still move it normally, but she could feel very little assistance, so she contacted Shigemura, however, he had told that Shikimi will deal with it, since he was busy.
“All right, you know the drill,” Shikimi said with a soft smile.
She then pulled out a one piece padded cooling suit for Misumi which was label with the Kamura logo with pinstripes. For having to do this many times, she took the memo while taking the clothes and headed into the closet to change. She came out wearing the black suit which covered most of her body, except for her head, feet, and hands.
There was a bunch of clanking noise as Shikimi reached into the box again and pulled out raveled parts that were tangled on her hand. Misumi turned around and stretched out her arms to her sides.
“I hope you don’t mind, but I actually did some revising with some of the parts. I couldn’t really get to troubleshooting your arm, though.”
Misumi just shrugged, not really having any opinion on the matter.
After a painstaking 10 minutes, Misumi was finally hooked up with a bunch of wires, straps, and components on her body. Thankfully, the material used for the suit was lightweight so there was no additional force put onto her body. She could feel a change in the resistance of the mechanical levers aiding her arms and legs than how it was. The collar was placed around Misumi’s neck which was holding up the powersupply to the nape of her neck, she noticed that there was some exposed wires there. Misumi asked a question and looked at that glance.
Shikimi, who seemed to notice Misumi’s expression, said, “I took out the battery component to see if we need more voltage for the suit.”
Misumi then ended up getting suspicion, “More voltage? Why? What did you do?”
She was taken aback a little at that notion, it was obvious to her that the parts were more tightly constrained to her hips and shoulders than before.
Twisting her head around to see the black haired girl, she felt a hand on her shoulder and pulled her back a bit as Shikimi stepped back as well. Shikimi took two small clips, placing them onto the wires at the back of Misumi’s neck.
“Ok, I’m going to turn it on now,” Shikimi warned while making some adjustments to the generator before flicking up the switch.
Misumi marched in place of her own accord to get the feel for it. While it did feel different from before, she could still feel the piece working at her hips and thighs. Ever since she started testing it, after each run, it was to take a while to get used to using your own muscles without the assistance. This time, it didn’t feel like the mechanics weren’t doing as much work.
“What did you do? I don’t feel as much leverage.”
“When we were testing with Eiji and Shigemura, I noticed that the motors had a hard time keeping up with you, so I decided to add more tolerance to yours when you learn to have the exosuit do the work for you. I’ll change them back when you feel like you’re ready.”
Misumi kept trying to look back at Shikimi, “but wouldn’t that make me want to use my own muscles even more?”
“Well, what we’re trying to achieve is help your mobility and reduce the work you put onto your muscles. With you, it seems like we’re going have to start small for you to get used to the exosuit so you don’t break it without having to constrain you too much,”
Shikimi slid her fingers up Misumi’s right arm to lift it, “like what you did with your right arm, you ruined a motor by stressing it too much. That is why I added more tolerance on the rotaries, due to that, you’re not feeling as much leverage.”
“Ah.”
Misumi nodded a bit, but she then asked another question, “Is this something you should be worrying about with Eiji, too?”
“Hmm,” Shikimi felt down the spine support on Misumi’s back with thin fingers, “Don’t get upset, but I and Shigemura may have underestimated how much force you would use while testing.”
“Huh…” Misumi let down her shoulders in disappointment. Shikimi smiled in amusement.
“Yes. You and Eiji have different bodies, you know. Eiji is particularly muscular, so the motors on him are more loosely fitted so he has the freedom of moving his body until he gets the hang of the exosuit. You’re also pretty toned yourself, especially in the legs and upper body, but your muscle mass is slightly lower than Eiji’s, so we thought you needed to start off with a low tolerance.”
Misumi swallowed a bit, “Well, maybe you should check on Eiji’s suit, he is a brute after all-”
She stopped talking as she felt Shikimi gently grasping her extended right forearm, “You’re a brute, too.”
The shorter girl leaned around Misumi and peered into her eyes with a gentle smile. Misumi couldn’t help but widened her eyes a little as she stared back, it felt like a few minutes but was only a few seconds until she broke eye contact.
“I don’t mean to be…”
Shikimi widened her smile as she rubbed Misumi’s arm, “I’m sure you don’t, and I’m sure that old friend of yours didn’t either, back in SAO.”
All of sudden, after she said that, Misumi felt the air become hot, “Old friend?”
Shikimi nodded, “Miss Yuuki, Asuna Yuuki?”
Misumi sucked in a sharp breath while having a twinge in her cheek, wondering why she just called Asuna a brute but she didn’t give any mind to it at the moment, “how do you know we were friends?”
Shikimi walked a little bit away and pulled out some tools from the box, “Well, when I first got to Aeterna, it was pretty much the only thing I heard. The two competeing top students, escaping into another reality together, it’s almost romantic. You sure were a competitive one, weren’t you?” Misumi couldn’t really see her face, but she knew that she had a sneering look on her, “Are you two still friends?”
The other girl detached Misumi from the power generator as Misumi thought for a few moments, “I guess? To be honest, I’m not too sure,” she said in a low voice.
Shikimi raised a brow, “you’re not too sure?”
She took a small screwdriver and started trying to open up the panel for the motor on Misumi’s shoulder.
Misumi wearily looked up.
When Misumi had heard that Yuna had passed away while she was with Eiji, she had felt like her head space was going back to that lonely child again when she was in elementry school and a weird obsession in making sure that Asuna would make it out alive, it was her promise to her. She had nightmares of receiving a message saying that Asuna had died while with Kazuto. It all transferred into the realworld, especially with that obsession…she felt bad for it.
When Kazuto was diving into GGO where the killing scheme was taking place, after she heard that Asuna wanted to go with Kazuto during a short call they had, she felt like she lost her mind during that time and ended up having a big fight about it with her, thus distanting her and Asuna’s relationship.
Shikimi closed her eyes and let out a soft hum, “I guess that’s too bad, it seemed like you two were special to each other.”
A small smile found its way onto Misumi’s face but there was still a hint of dejection. It was all her fault that they were like this now, she regretted everything. If it wasn’t for her wanting to escape to Sword Art Online with Asuna, then…
What would’ve happened?
Before Misumi’s mind was about to run a million thoughts through her head, Shikimi changed the subject.
“You know, after this, I want you to take this suit for a test drive…outside of the training zone.”
Misumi blinked a few times as she looked towards Shikimi, who was already taking off the panel of the motor.
“For real?”
“Yes,” she put the panel on the table next to them, “This would be a good stress test and help you get used to the suit, besides…”
She looked to the side at the door before looking back at Misumi, “have you heard of Ordinal Scale?
“Ordinal Scale…no, not really.”
“Well, it’s a ranking based AR co-op game that just came out exclusively for the Augma.”
“Mm…”
Misumi hasn’t been really all that interested in the Augma considering that she was quite used to her phone, so it made sense that she hadn’t heard of this.
“I don’t really use my Augma outside of training.”
“You’re going have to use it if you are going to take the exosuit outside of the training place.”
The taller girl shrugged and let out a huff.
The Augma was given to Misumi and Eiji, it has a special application that is good at predicting an object’s movement, giving her and him better orientation with the suit on.
“Eiji has already taken his suit out quite a few times and participated in Ordinal Scale fights, he’s already the top player, ranking number one.”
“I see…”
Shikimi let out a soft giggled, “and considering how competitive you are, I’m sure you’d want to take that top spot, wouldn’t you?”
Once again, Misumi shrugged her shoulders. As much as she wanted to seem cool headed at the moment, the thought of an AR MMO intrigued her quite a bit.
Shikimi started to explain, “I want to compete with Shigemura with the exosuit, while I want you to compete with Eiji,“ Shikimi’s voice started to get deeper, “overcome Eiji and take that number one spot.”
Misumi audibly gulped at the tone of Shikimi’s voice. That sense of that calm urgency felt a little too familiar, drawing her back when SAO was to be announced as a death game.
Ordinal Scale…it’s just a game, right?