Two months had already passed since I returned to the real world, but I still couldn’t get used to my appearance. Although the swordsman Kirito and the current Kirigaya Kazuto were supposed to have the same appearance, my loss of body weight had yet to fully recover, so the bony body underneath my T-shirt was extremely frail. I suddenly noticed two lines of tears shining on my face in the mirror and wiped it off with my right hand. “I’ve turned into a complete crybaby... Asuna.” I muttered and walked to the large window on the south side of the room. I opened the curtains with both hands, and the glaring sunlight of a winter morning dyed the inside of my room in pale yellow. * * * Kirigaya Suguha was really happy as she walked across the ice in the courtyard and then sped up. The snow that fell two days ago had yet to melt completely, and the mid-January morning air was extremely cold. She stopped at the edge of a pond, which was covered by a thin layer of ice, and set the shinai in her right hand down against the trunk of a nearby black pine. To expel the lingering drowsiness from her body, she took several deep breaths, placed both hands at the knees, and began her stretching exercises. Her muscles, which had yet to awaken fully, slowly loosened up. First came the knees, then she felt a prickling sensation as blood began to circulate in her calves and ankles.