Chapter Text
Chapter 24 - Rain of Fire
"I hope everyone had a good night's sleep-" Kirito wondered whether the Commander had found his sense of humour, given that he, Argo, Asuna and Sinon had somewhere around 3 hours sleep after returning from what was being labelled in various places as an unsanctioned assassination mission… and the actions necessary to end the war there and then.
Whichever it was, it had failed in that regards; Chudelkin was very much still alive and they had enough intel to suggest that he was planning a revenge attack on the Oseans - though not enough to say whether that would be the armed forces, or the civilian population.
That second option was the one they had all reckoned on though, and now, this was no longer a war over a foreign soil, but rather one they would have to fight on the defensive for…
"-because we have more intelligence thanks to Eugeo." Honestly, they couldn't help but be extremely glad that Eugeo had escaped when he had, because if not?
Well, the casualties from a sneak attack like that didn't bear thinking about… especially not after what they'd seen over Tulau from the Scuds.
"The remaining forces loyal to the Jesters are planning an attack on the Osean mainland, using both of the remaining ballistic missiles, and suicide attackers. At this point, we still don't know their targets, but Command has reiterated that we are to ensure no damage comes to the mainland, and that means the gloves are well and truly off now."
"The Commander is right - Point Major is readying a flight of B-58s as we speak for a conventional strike on the base. The Hustlers will be tasked with wiping out any potential missile sites, regardless of the location."
"In the event the B-58s fail to hit the target, or that the target remains active after the strike, we have a pair of B-52s at stand off distance armed with SRAMs."
SRAMs, Kirito wondered. The AGM-69 SRAM (Short Range Attack Missile) was nuclear armed, and as far as any of them were aware, Strangereal didn't have nukes yet, so the SRAMs must have been armed with something else instead.
"These SRAMs will be armed with thermobaric warheads, so in theory, they should be able to wipe out any missile sites and their crews." And everyone in the surrounding area, Kirito mused to himself with a sense of foreboding. A thermobaric weapon was a particularly nasty type of weapon, he remembered, one that was designed to incinerate the oxygen in the area around detonation, as well as aerosolising and igniting its own fuel. Death from such a weapon was particularly unpleasant - the blast wave being the most likely cause of death, followed by incineration and inhalation of the burning fuel…
Involuntarily, he found himself shuddering at the thought, though no one noticed, and the briefing continued.
"Still, that will only require a small number of aircraft to provide an escort for the bombers. The remaining crews will stay here, on full alert. Starting from 0900, we'll have an airborne CAP until the bombers return."
As selfish as it was, Kirito found himself hoping for them to be part of the CAP duty, rather than escorting the bombers - he'd seen enough damage done to the Adamasian capital and villages already, and watching one of them potentially get incinerated wasn't high on his list of things to do.
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9am came around, and the first flight took off on patrol; formed by Fanatio and Sortiliena, with Eydis and Itsuki following shortly behind.
Given that the 302 were very short staffed with the loss of Sierra, and incapacitation of Jet and Kureha, it made sense that the former Solitaire flight would be split for the time being; Itsuki joining up with the 301st in the air defence role, whilst Zeliska borrowed Kureha's F-105 to act as a pathfinder for the bombers over the island of Adamas Minor.
The Idol girls and guy followed not long behind her, flying electronic suppression for the strike package, which had left the 303rd to wait their turn in the rec room. A turn that he hoped would never come, but one that probably would - Chudelkin didn't exactly seem like the stable kind, Kirito reminded himself.
Despite the jubilation of their return last night, the mood still felt particularly sombre for them - whilst both Alice and Eugeo had returned alive, it wasn't easy to say it had been in one piece. Eugeo was remarkably intact for someone who had been tortured by one of the most sadistic men in the southern hemisphere, but the same couldn't be said for Alice, who had passed out almost immediately on returning to Bana, and been rushed into the medical unit to aid with her injuries.
He had no doubts that both of them would remember that for a long time, if not the rest of their lives; a bleak reminder of the death game they found themselves in.
"Credit for ya thoughts, Kiri-dude?" Klein asked, snapping him back to reality for the moment.
"Just thinking."
"Yeah, I get ya. Stakes are a lot higher this time, aren't they?"
"There's a lot of people depending on us now, isn't there?" He heard Ronye ask quietly - probably asking herself, rather than anyone else.
"We've been in worse scrapes, eh?" Argo kicked herself forward, trying to cheer everyone up a little as she threw herself into a standing position. "And we've got the easy job too - all we have to do is stop a few MIGs, nothin' we don't do everyday…"
"I suppose so, yes." Asuna admitted.
"Besides, we didn't get to celebrate, did we?"
"Celebrate what?" Klein asked in confusion, and he was in the same boat there - were they celebrating Alice, Eugeo and Jet returning? Because if so, he couldn't help but feel that it was in slightly poor taste given that not everyone returned…
"Aa-chan becomin' an ace in a day, that's what!" Argo beamed.
"Really?" He asked, having not really kept up with the other side of the fight last night.
"Yeah, I think I managed to down five MIGs last night." Asuna admitted, unusually sheepishly. Wait… was she embarrassed?! Asuna, of all people, being embarrassed… by praise?
"Go on, ma'am!" Tiese cheered enthusiastically. "Wait, I've just realised something… who actually does have the highest score here?"
Kirito thought about it for a moment, and realised he genuinely had no idea. They'd never really kept count, and ACES wasn't your normal game, in that he had no idea where the pilot's statistics actually were in the menu - if they were even there in the first place.
"Prob'ly a toss up between Kii-bou and Aa-chan, I betcha."
"Perhaps." Sinon thought aloud from her chair. "I can safely say that my total is six, so far."
"Wait, yer an ace too Sinon-on?!"
"Argo, we've been flying combat missions for eight months now, and in almost every major mission, we come across hostile aircraft. It'd be a surprise if she wasn't an ace yet." He pointed out, and Argo gave a look of "you make a good point." to him.
"I think I'm probably the lowest scoring person here though - uhh, none." Philia admitted, deflating into her shoulders.
"Maybe you aren't an ace Philia, but it doesn't mean you aren't a valuable part of the squadron." Ronye added.
"Isn't there such a thing as a photo ace though?" Klein asked.
"I mean, there may be… but I've never heard the term before."
"Can I not get the sympathy vote please…" Philia groaned, to Argo's laughter.
"Nah, we're just pullin' ya leg, Phi-chan." Argo sat next to her. " 'Sides, we can't all be like them pair, can we?"
"Hey! Why are we getting singled out here?"
" ' Cause yer both insane, ya know that? Aa-chan for fightin' off two flights of MIGs, almost on her own, and you, Kii-bou… for being you." Argo grinned.
"Charming." He rolled his eyes. "Still, what have I ever done that was insane?"
"Kii-bou, our job was to point ourselves at a missile battery and shoot back at it. Find me one part o'' that that ain't insane to an observer…"
She had a fair point there, he had to admit. Becoming bait for missiles, and then pointing themselves at the missile was a bit mad when it was said out loud, but so were many things - it didn't make the person doing them insane… most of the time.
The bantering in the rec room was interrupted as the siren rang out - they were needed in the air… now!
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The first ten minutes of the patrol was relatively calm, with very little happening other than the occasional radio traffic from other aircraft in the interceptor group to the east of the bay. Her group was unusually quiet in that regard, she thought - Eydis, ever the ray of light amongst the group, seemed laser focused on the mission at hand, with barely a word spoken outside of routine callouts.
Even LLENN and Pitohui seemed quieter than usual, though there was still the usual bantering at seemingly random intervals.
That all changed with a single call from the ground based controllers though.
"Knights, we have ten MIGs approaching at 120 miles on heading 310, angels six. Move to intercept positions, and hold fire."
Something about this whole situation didn't feel right to Fanatio, but she couldn't say exactly what it was - merely that something felt wrong. A nebulous kind of wrong that you only felt when you could sense you didn't have the full picture, but were lacking the clues to understand what the missing part of the picture really was…
And she absolutely hated that feeling.
"Understood, Watchman. Knights are moving into position."
"Ma'am, I have them on my radar." Sortiliena told her, "But something feels off here. If they were coming for suicide attacks on the city, why would you form up into very obvious flights?"
"Hate to agree with the princess, but she's right. If they were here to rain hell down there, they'd be in ones and twos, scattered to the wind… not in formation." It was rare to hear Pitohui not being contrarian, but the more it was stated, the more it made sense to her.
"Watchman, are there any other targets on radar?"
"Uhh, hold." The line fell quiet briefly, before they returned. "Negative, Knight Lead. Just the MIGs, and two civilian aircraft that are still en route to land at Bana."
"Understood." She answered apprehensively. There had to be a detail they were missing, something that made sense of the entire mess… "Watchman, confirm details on those civilian aircraft."
"Target at your three o'clock is an Air Ixiom DC-10, callsign Ixiom 890. Target to your twelve is… hang on, that's strange?"
"Watchman?"
"Air Ixiom has just dropped off radar."
"Fanatio, it's Bercouli, I've just been given word that any civilian aircraft out there is not civilian! Airspace is clear of civilian traffic! They're Adamasian aircraft flying on stolen frequencies. Chudelkin must have gotten hold of them somehow."
"Understood sir, we're tracking them now. What about the MIGs though?"
"I'm scrambling additional aircraft now, they'll be with you in five minutes."
"Understood sir."
The MIGs were one problem, but the airliners were something else entirely - the air defence network would struggle to pick them out as hostile, and so it would be down to the interceptors already up here to find and down them… if they really were hostile, that was.
"Ma'am, this is Watchman. More radar targets at low altitude and low speed."
"Huh?"
"Either drones or light aircraft, we think."
"Fuck!" Pitohui shouted into her mic.
"We're gonna have problems against those, aren't we?"
"Fanatio, I'm scrambling the others to handle those. Keep your eyes on the prize, will you?"
She wanted to snap back at him and tell him what else he thought she would be doing at that moment, but she settled for a mild groan instead.
Drawing up a picture in her head, they had a group of about ten MIG-23s crossing into the Bay Control Area, at around 100 miles from land - they would be priority targets, knowing what they knew about them. The odds were that those MIGs were packed to the brim with explosives, and intended to attack civilian targets…
The next targets would be the light aircraft. She assumed they were somewhat further into the BCA, else they would be difficult to track effectively, but they were Twilight's job to handle, not theirs. The girls of Twilight may have been young, but in this case, age really didn't matter - they were as skilled as any pilots she'd met during the death game.
Then there were the errant airliners. They would certainly pose an issue, especially if the air defences failed to do their job and shoot them down. If they wanted confirmation, it would almost certainly become a game of cat and mouse, the airliners weaving in and out of their coverage whilst they did their level best to confirm their true identity.
So a plan was created to cover each base in her mind. "Sortiliena, engage the airliners. Confirm your targets first though. Itsuki, go with her and cover her in case any fighters show up."
"Yes ma'am."
"Understood."
"Knights, with me. We will handle those MIGs before they can become a major problem for our defences."
She hoped they would anyway…
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The skies above Bana Bay were busier than ever before, Kirito thought as they climbed into the overcast sky, the only colours to contrast the greys and whites around them being made up by their aircraft…
Still, that wasn't at all important right now. "Kids, I'll be honest with ya, the situation's a complete shitshow. Our defences got caught with their pants down, and we're pickin' up the slack as best we can." Bercouli admitted, and he grimaced at the frankness of it.
"Tell us where you want us, sir."
"Anywhere, everywhere probably! Liena and Itsuki are handlin' the airliners, the rest of the Knights are doin' their best to do deal with the MIGs, an' Twilight are lookin' for any suicidal Cessnas. Take ya pick."
"Sinon, head towards Liena and Itsuki. We'll need you to act as our eyes out here."
"Understood."
"Tiese, Ronye, with us. We'll do what we can against the MIGs."
"We're with you, Kirito."
"Hold yer ho'sses, urgent transmission comin' from HQ…" That was never a good sign, was it? "You've gotta be kiddin' me, right? Are they sure, is that verified?" Bercouli asked, his voice now a rather less nonchalant tone than usual. "All aircraft, this is Commander Heirlentz of the 1st Eagle Wing. We have credible reports of WMDs being carried aboard those airliners."
"WMDs?" Argo muttered, before realising what he meant by that. "Those warheads are onboard the 'liners, ain't they?"
"I'd guess so, yeah."
"If you back a man into a corner, you should not be surprised when he shows he has nothing left to lose…" Itsuki mused in his usual apathetic way.
"Wax poetic later!" Liena called him out as quickly as his commanding officer usually did, soon silencing the poeticism before it could get any more depressing…
As if the possibility of a pair of WMDs being loose above a city, along with a wave of human guided missiles wasn't depressing enough already!
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Kirito had lost track of time at this point, as well as their kill count - too many of them had simply been maneuvering kills, rather than direct fire.. Many of the MIGs had simply flown into the water either in a vain attempt to evade them, or a serious lack of understanding of the MIG-23s poor kinematic envelope; both had the same effect either way though - fewer MIGs left to reach the city…
The airliners had also been a similarly anti-climactic threat, he thought to himself - civilian ATC had proven far more competent than their radar operators, and managed to reroute almost every incoming aircraft into specific corridors… save for two.
The Adamasian Tupovlevs.
With the threat now properly identified, Fanatio had taken Knight over to verify and destroy them, leaving the rest of them to handle the last few MIGs…
"Kid, you've got them on the run now, only… oh come on, there's more of 'em?!" Bercouli groaned in frustration. "The hell does Chudelkin think he's achievin', other than killin' his own guys?"
"Tiger 18, we've got a visual on the new bandits - MIG-25s and a… no way, that's a MIG-29 isn't it?! Aren't they still prototypes!?" One of the interceptors called out, before the frequency fell quiet.
As did he.
The MIG-29 was a far more advanced fighter than the Fishbeds and Floggers they regularly faced - it was a true fourth generation fighter, easily comparable with their F-14 and Asuna's F-15, and in fact, it had been developed as a counter for the F-15 in particular.
It was light (in comparison), rugged and well armed for a light fighter - a pair of Aphids, a pair of Archers and a pair of Alamo air-to-air missiles, plus a 30mm cannon - all of which made for a fearsome opponent…
Though it did seriously make Kirito wonder how advanced Strangereal was, considering that his F-14 should've still been on a drawing board, and the MIG-29 shouldn't have even been that far along in development!
"You should know by now Bercouli, I don't play games… Do I?"
"You're either very brave or very stupid trying this…"
"As are you. You never could beat me in a fight, could you? Let's see your proteges do any better! Valkyrie Squadron… kill them all."
The frequency fell quiet, and Kirito reckoned he could faintly hear the sounds of Latin chanting in the background. He guessed this was the first big boss fight then, and they'd need their A-game about them.
"Kid, I don't know what he's up to, but you need to stop him. Just remember, he may sound like a weasel overdosed on helium, but he ain't a slouch in the air… he's right, I couldn't kill him up there, and that was way back when."
He reminded himself to thank Bercouli for the vote of confidence there, before strategizing for a few moments - five aircraft were approaching, four of them MIG-25s and a single MIG-29, the MIG-29 being flown by Chudelkin, no doubt, and it was up to just Argo, Asuna and himself to handle them.
Twilight and Samurai were busy handling the remainder of the decoy MIGs, whilst Knight were handling the airliners carrying the warheads, which would have been fine; the Black Blades were easily the largest flight in the 1st Eagles, but today, that wasn't the case. Sinon was on picket duty with Sortiliena, whilst Ronye and Tiese had already had to return to base to rearm, and obviously, Alice and Eugeo were grounded after their return…
Two aircraft versus five then.
"Asuna, we're going to need to even the playing field a little bit. Plan number 6, I think."
"A number 6 it is then."
He quietly thanked his past self for actually spending time to come up with various strategies for countering more difficult enemies in their downtime, and a number 6 was exactly that - the two of them would split up, forcing the enemy force to break rank themselves and scatter to find them.
During that time, both of them would attempt to encircle the attack force and engage them with Sparrows - Phoenixes, as useful as they were, had too long of a warm up procedure for the pop up attacks they'd need to rely on out here…
He looked over at Asuna's white Eagle, and with a signal from Argo, the plan was in action.
He snapped the F-14 into a 90 degree turn to the right, with the afterburners in full in order to climb and meet the MIG-25s.
A shrill warning rang through the cockpit - the warning sign that one of them had released an R-40 at them. "Kii-bou, missile warning, off our nine."
"Deploying chaff and flares." He responded, and shreds of foil dropped out of the back of the aircraft, whilst orange flares lit up the skies behind them.
The decoy measures worked perfectly, and the R-40 simply flew straight past them as if it had never seen them. "Argo…"
"Workin' on gettin' 'em in my sights!" She called out from behind. "Kii-bou, gimme an extra 90 degrees, would'cha?"
"On it." He told her, craning the F-14 around further to allow Argo to lock up the first Foxbat. He'd never really gotten the hang of the complicated radar set in the F-4, let alone their F-14, but if there was anyone he trusted to make the shot with the sometimes finicky Sparrow, it was Argo - all he had to do was put them in position to do so…
"Gotcha." Argo exclaimed, and he could feel one of the two Sparrows drop away from the F-14s pylons. "Black Blade One, Fox One!"
He caught a glance of the missile as it streaked away into the mid-morning sky, and lit it up with a distribution of MIG-25 parts… "Boom! Don't think they'll be landin' after that…"
"Good shot." He told her, and spotted the other MIG in the flight breaking to pursue Asuna. Yeah, that wasn't happening - the Foxbat was vastly superior in speed to their F-14, and so a quick lock was crucial to hitting the huge interceptor before it pulled away from them… "Second MIG at our twelve, ten miles.."
"Workin' her over now." Argo responded, as a missile tone came through his headset. "Blade One, Fox Two!" A Sidewinder dropped away from the launch rail, and much like the Sparrow, screamed towards the unlucky MIG.
Unlike the other MIG however, the much smaller missile failed to completely destroy the Foxbat, having showered its rear quarter with shrapnel and failed to really do much other than produce an acrid cloud of black smoke from one of the R-15 engines…
"Dammit!" Argo cried from behind. "The heck are those MIGs made of!?"
"No idea, but-" Before he could finish, the black smoke had started to glow orange instead, and a shower of metal poured out behind the Foxbat before it rolled inverted and disappeared into the clouds… "Well, that worked." He answered, dumbfounded by the seemingly out of nowhere disintegration of the MIG.
"Aye. Aa-chan, just-"
"Heh heh heh, Berco taught you miserable lot well, didn't he?"
"Get off our frequency, asshole!" Kirito snapped at the interruption. Of course he'd be using the same kinds of interruption tactics that they'd used; Ronye had warned him of exactly this after they had encountered the same trick on the first night of Operation Diamond…
Still though, where was the jammer, if he was doing it that way?
"Which one of you should I kill first? The ace in a day, or the leader…"
"Argo…"
"Don't worry, I'll shut that big mouth of his permanently!"
"Now those are fighting words…"
"Nah, ya stupid clown fucker, those are fightin' words!" Argo snapped back in a rare case of her losing her calm. "After e'rrythin' yer lot have done, we're killin' ya here and now."
"Tut tut tut, did the foolish Lieutenant forget to teach you all manners now? Is that really how you address your superiors?"
"Oh piss off already!" Argo shouted back.
"Captain Hosaka, don't let him get in your head, else he's already halfway to winning the battle…" They heard Fanatio comment on their frequency.
"Ya right, yeah. Time t' get serious, eh, Kirito?"
"If he's lucky, he'll be swimming home." He let a small smirk come across his face as he scanned the skies for the errant MIG-29.
No signs of it, which meant they were about to receive a missile to their face, one they were blissfully unaware of, or that he was going after Asuna instead. "Argo, have you got him on radar."
"Nope, the fucker's doing his best to make life difficult for us." Argo groaned, tapping impatiently on the radar scope behind him. "He keeps croppin' up an' disappearin', almost like he's turnin' his radar on an' off…"
"Asuna, you still there?"
"Still here, Argo. One of the MIGs is down, and the other is making an attack run on the city. They won't make it though."
"Good gal, jus' watch out for Chudelkin, we don't have him on-"
"I can tell you exactly where he is, he's on my nine o'clock at angels two. Going evasive!"
"Don't have to tell me, I'm on it. Asuna, hang in there, we're coming!"
"But will you make it in time to-huh?"
"Nah, they don't need to." Yuuki called out, much to his surprise - weren't Twilight over in the bay, handling the MIGs? "Sorry I'm late, Asuna, we just had to take out the trash! Oh, and I bought backup too!"
"How many of you are there?!" Chudelkin asked in horror, clearly realising the situation he found himself in - outnumbered twelve to one, and with all twelve of them absolutely livid…
He'd walked into the hornets' nest, and was about to get stung into oblivion…
"Don't s'ppose you'll accept the terms of surrender, will you?" He asked meekly.
"Not a chance, creep."
Suddenly, his demeanour changed from meek terror to suicidal rage, as the MIG snapped back towards them. "For the queen!" He screamed down the microphone, loudly enough that it produced feedback in their headsets…
"Jeez…"
"Kii-bou, I've got a lock on him."
"Black Blade Lead, Fox One." A Sparrow fell away from the belly of the aircraft, and screamed towards the last remnants of the Jesters. A few moments passed, and a fireball shone bright against the water below. "Did we get him?"
"Negative, he's still coming!"
"My turn then. This one's for everyone you killed and hurt!" He snapped the F-14 into a dive towards the burning MIG, and set up for a Sidewinder shot. The characteristic growl of the lock tone rang through his headset, and he fired off the last of their Sidewinders.
Despite the direct hit from the missile, the MIG-29 carried on, screaming along as it headed for the city. "Kirito, going for guns." He told them, pulling in behind the MIG and getting the reticle squarely over the Fulcrum. "Guns."
Knowing the importance of ending this, he bet on his aim being true, and held down the trigger until the cannon was completely empty - 2 seconds of ammunition, about 350 rounds all in all of both armour piercing and tracers, lit up the sky ahead of them, before they pummelled the MIGs lighter airframe.
All he saw was an explosion ahead of them, one that engulfed the Fulcrum completely, and left nothing but shrapnel in front of them. "Kirito, splash one." He sighed, pulling his mask away from his face in order to breathe a little easier. "Chudelkin's down, his plane's completely gone."
"Damn kid, you weren't gonna let him come back, were ya?" Bercouli whistled. "Can't say I blame ya tho'."
"Asuna, I've just downed the last MIG-25. They've gone down in Bana Bay."
"Is that it then?" Klein asked, the exhaustion evident in his voice.
"Black Blades, Samurai, Twilight, Knights, scope's clear. All attackers neutralised." The radar operative told them. "Good going out there, if they don't recommend you guys for some kind of medals, then they're bloody insane."
"No thanks needed, Watchman. All part of the service…"
"Though a pay rise would be appreciated." LLENN interjected.
"As would some new toys." Pitohui stated, a rare sense of optimism showing through in the mad woman's voice.
"I have had my eye on something for a while now…" Sortiliena agreed, though he could tell it was more in a joking sense.
"There's no pleasing you mercenaries, is there?" The radar controller laughed along. "We're just confirming that everything is clear, but we've got nothing here. All aircraft, you're cleared to return to Bana. We have divers going out there now to scour the airliners for the WMDs, so we'll be able to tell if the reports were credible soon enough..."
"You guys and gals might wanna tune your radios to 97.9… see what they're saying about you." Bercouli told them, and he tuned the radio beside him.
"The time is 10:00, and this is the Radio by the Bay on 97.9, returning to our regularly scheduled programming following that air raid. But first, we'd like to give a massive thanks to our brave pilots up there! We've even heard rumours that the pilots up there were the same ones at Oured Bay; the Angels! What we can say about them though, is that they saved a great many lives today with their actions, so we'd just like to ask our listeners to give them one heck of a round of applause!"
"Huh, we're famous now?" He thought out loud, momentarily forgetting Argo was in the back seat…
"Hah, gotta say, I'm likin' the glory here…" He could just see the grin on Pitohui's face at that statement. "Maybe we should ask for a pay rise after all…"
"Ya know somethin', Kii-bou?"
"Hm?"
"These past few days have been a right roller coaster, ain't they?"
"That's putting it mildly." He allowed himself to breathe a bit easier knowing that all that was left to do for now was a victory lap; between the frantic build up to the invasion of Adamas, the constant air superiority missions, losing Alice and Eugeo, recovering Alice and Eugeo, and now this… he knew one thing for certain:
They were having a day off after this.
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The landings they all undertook at Bana City were nothing if not routine. The scene waiting for them as they all got out of their aircraft on the hard stands… not so much.
It truly felt like the party had started without them - the party probably having started with the return of the bombing crews, having neutralised the Jesters' Scuds, and even if the popping of the cork on a bottle had left a dent in Asuna's shiny new F-15… and it had required both himself and Argo to convince her not to order the poor sap to have to fix the dent himself - and some of them found themselves being carried aloft by the more rambunctious members of the crowd.
Thankfully, he and Asuna had been able to avoid that; though Argo had almost gleefully jumped into the human wave in front of them when it became apparent what they were doing…
"Would it be rude if I said I'm not too bothered about the celebrations, and went back to bed?" Kirito asked no one in particular.
"I think that's understandable-" Asuna responded, before breaking into the type of yawn that could only come from someone thoroughly exhausted… "Excuse me." She apologised for that, looking away awkwardly.
"Forgiven." He laughed quietly. "I can't believe how much has actually happened in the past few days, really."
"It feels like a few weeks, not a few days." Asuna agreed. "Or my body thinks so, anyway. It feels like I won't even make it to my bed, and I will just happily sleep on the floor…"
He laughed along - he perfectly understood that feeling too, especially as his legs felt like gelatin at this point. If he was being honest, a stiff breeze would be enough to cause him to sway like a tree branch… though he wasn't one hundred percent sure that it was just fatigue causing that.
On their return, Argo had joked about him taking Asuna out for a celebratory meal; to celebrate her ace in a day feat, he assumed, before he realised something he'd been doing his best to pretend wasn't there…
He liked Asuna - not as a wing woman, not as a friend… but in a romantic way.
Obviously, he'd known Argo had been trying to set them up for the past four months - and probably before that in a more covert sense - but this was the first time he actually had serious thoughts about listening to her suggestions…
"Asuna, you know we were talking about celebrating you being an ace in a day, right?" He asked, and she stopped to look at him curiously. If there was ever a time to back out, it would be now… but he decided to keep going. "Well, I was thinking, how about we go out for a meal… when we can both stand up, anyway."
Asuna looked genuinely caught off guard by the question, and had she been even slightly less composed, her mouth may actually have dropped open… as it was though, she just looked surprised instead, and he wondered if he had overstepped the mark a little bit there."It's fine if you don't want to though!"
"No, no, I'd love to! I just… wasn't expecting anything like that, that's all!" Asuna did her best to hide her surprise, and move back to her more composed demeanour, succeeding in doing so mid-sentence. "So… tonight? If we both wake up, that is!" She laughed a little, trying to break the awkwardness between them.
"Tonight sounds good, yeah." He smiled, and did his best to hide that his legs felt like they would buckle at any moment now… "Anywhere in particular, or…?"
"Surprise me!" She giggled, before leaning into him (or leaning on him, at this point it was hard to tell the difference in both of their cases) and hugging him.. "It's a date then!"
As Asuna left, it finally dawned on him completely… he had a date.
He had a date with Asuna.
Tonight.
And he had absolutely no idea what he was going to do for said date.
Still, as nervous as he felt about it, there was something oddly familiar about it - oddly in his eyes, because he'd never actually been on a date before. Something that wasn't dogfights against unspeakable odds and enemies who would torture and murder them without a second thought… just something peaceful for once.
A chance to actually act his age, rather than having to present himself as the leader of a military fighter squadron and to have his finger on the pulse of events all of the time… and who knew, maybe everything would go perfectly and Asuna would actually want to go on a second date after this?
They were known as miracle workers now, after all…