Of Mouse and Man

Phase 4— Worse, Worse and Much Worse

..

Original Title: The World Only God Knows / 神のみぞ知るセカイ & Sword Art Online(ソードアート・オンライン)

Original Concept by: Tamiki Wakiki & Kawahara Reki

written by: wrathie

Author's Notes: A Crossover where Keima was not approached by the Weiss Capturing Squad and the Events of the Goddess Arc is non-existent.

Author's Notes: Thank you, bowpurity for the beta and all the fixes!

..

'It's YOUR FAULT! YOUR FAULT!'

Argo screamed at the Capturing God, Keima and would have continued to do if not for the look of utter misery and grief that he was showing on his face.

Argo hadn't wanted to believe, she didn't want to admit that her best friend had died after she had gone looking for Keima. She had learnt of the fact when their party had disbanded suddenly without any warning and she had feared the worst for her friend.

It had been finally confirmed when the status of 'deceased' had appeared beside Meizun's name in her friend list and she had rushed over as fast as she could over to Keima, the only person who would have all the answers for her.

So when she had discovered Keima struggling back to town with a haunted look on his face – she knew it was his fault and had wasted no time in pulling him to the nearest inn to get all the facts from him.

Despite being a wreck, Argo did not let up from her thirst in knowing exactly what happened. Why did she die? How did she die? Did she say something? What happened? Why did it happen? Could there be some mistake? Could she be still alive? Is she, really, dead?

So many questions but all of that was made irrelevant when the first thing that Keima said to her was – 'Why did you die for me?'

He was still out of it, that was why she was looking at Argo when he blurted that line out to her without thinking. All Argo felt though was rage, anger and disbelief at what had been revealed to her.

It wasn't unlikely at all that Meizun would do just that, Argo was aware of that from how she had behaved over the past few days. She had never thought that Meizun would go that far when she told her that she was meeting the Capturing God online at SAO. She had severely underestimated the faith that Meizun had for him and she had paid the ultimate price for it.

So Argo raised her voice and shouted at him. Nothing less would suffice to show her anger and frustration besides trying to kill him herself.

Because if she did that, then what Meizun did was rendered useless and she was not going to let her sister's sacrifice be for nothing.

'YOU KILLED HER! ALL BECAUSE YOU – YOU IDIOT!'

Argo couldn't say the words out without choking, it was not all Keima's fault, if Meizun had just let the other player be and kept on looking ahead at what was necessary– this might not have happened. Argo guessed that they had met with stronger opposition than Meizun was able to handle, and with a liability as that coward, even a mob that she was capable of holding back would be a deadly enemy.

She had lost her battle with mortality because of him, because she would protect him with the best of her abilities because she saw so much in Keima.

If her sister didn't, she wouldn't have died for him. That was also the only reason that didn't stop Argo from finishing the job herself like she had said so earlier.

But screaming at Keima was not going to get Meizun back, nor was she going to get anything done if she couldn't work past the grief, anger and pain at losing Meizun like this – to a person who was obviously not worth it!

'Y-You're not that great after all! You're nothing! Not when compared to her! Sh-She did so much, she even SAVED people! And what did you do?! You did NOTHING! Nothing at all! Your life isn't worth half of what she was! Give her back, you idiot! Give, her, BACK TO ME!'

So Argo took it out on Keima, her hands reached out to grab his shoulders and she shook him hard, and without any remorse. There's nothing that Keima could do to stop her from this last right that she had as Meizun's confidant – that of being angry for her sake. Even if Argo knew that Meizun would not be angry, she might even find it an a honor to die for the Capturing God, but she wasn't her! She would feel angry for her, just like how everyone else would feel if one of their friends had to die for a worthless scum when she could have just ignored him.

'Give her back, DAMNIT! KEIMAA!'

Argo screamed as she slapped Keima, knocking him to the floor before mounting him, her legs pressing his arms together as she rained blows down on him. Or tried to at least as the system threw Argo off after issuing her with a harassment warning within the city grounds. It was partly a feature to stop players from attacking another and the other was the enforcement of the Ethics codes on all players. The Ethics codes would trigger no matter the location after all.

Struggling to her feet, Argo gave a wail of anger and despair when it became obvious that she couldn't do anything more if she wanted to avoid the fate of being thrown into the city prison. She had gotten a warning from the system to stop attacking another player. It was probably due to the ethics code did it activate like that, normally attacks on players would be rewarded by the attacker's attack rebounding back on them – at least within the city grounds.

There was nothing that Argo could do besides screaming at him then – and scream she did, she painstakingly wanted to make him remember and experience the pain that she felt from losing Meizun in such a fashion so that he would never forget this day for the rest of his miserable life.

..

Katsuragi Keima, the Capturing God had done many things in his life. There were things he did wrong and things he did right, but the majority of the things he did, he did them right and he did them good.

He was the Capturing God after all and in the ideal he was the best, and would continue to be the best there ever was. Till this incident, till he failed someone that he shouldn't have in the ideal. Now SAO was not the ideal, but it was slowly shaping up to be one. A place where he was not judged by others, where he would be accepted by those who mattered.

Didn't the governor of the starting city recognize his efforts and even rewarded him for it? Didn't Jessica, Tracy and all the other shop owners happily included him inside their lives? Even if this was a lie, it was still a ideal. Besides, it wasn't that he wasn't doing nothing for the other players that were trapped here.

He was constantly updating the list of quests, working on hidden mechanics of SAO itself without any prior information to fall back on at all. It could be argued that he was doing very well despite his lack of commitment to levelling himself up.

But apparently that wasn't enough as he had still grossly miscalculated, he had been too arrogant, too proud of his own abilities that he had been caught blind by the monster that had taken the life of her most ardent follower in SAO.

It was supposed to be a simple fetch and return quest in an area filled with monsters that Keima could easily outrun or avoid. That was the only reason that he had accepted this quest in the first place. Subjugation quests were common and lucrative, but the risks and investment involved in finishing the quests meant that sometimes it just wasn't worth it. Compared to them, fetch and return quests were much easier and rewarded the player with similar returns.

Meizun hadn't protested or looked nervous when he had found the item at the coordinates specified on the quest. Meizun... was different, Keima acknowledged that before, but it was only upon reflecting, upon remembering what the two of them had done for the past 5 days did it became clear that Meizun online was different from Meizun the player in SAO.

It wasn't unthinkable, people communicate differently through different mediums after all and it wouldn't be the first time that someone would appear different in the ideal and in the real. It's doubly convincing when Meizun was totally different when it came to combat in SAO. She had been up front clearing the route for him to go through and Keima humoured her by not running towards the location instead.

Meizun had spent the entire time telling him about how despair and panic would soon sweep through the community when it became obvious that no help was coming from the outside world. That they were trapped here, and was unlikely to ever leave until someone cleared the game. That suited Keima just fine, and he told Meizun so, that he didn't mind it here.

It was a game that could evolve like she said it could, and he was excited to see the evolution of the intelligence of the game if only in a few days, NPCs could effectively learn and start being more than just the sum of parts. Keima couldn't help to listen to the backstory and the history of Aincrad. A world like this would have their own origin and mythology, and if there wasn't, what's stopping others from just making them with their exploits.

Keima had been too caught up with his own hopes for the game, singing it's praises just like how Meizun had did so to him before the official launch of SAO.

It both embarrassed and horrified Keima to remember what had happened then. Meizun had been more than willing to indulge in his own fanciful hopes for SAO even if he was trapped here despite him not doing the same for her during the beta-phase of SAO.

That was the embarrassing part, the horrific part was how that it was due to his own lengthy speech did he fail to notice the monster that spawned beside him. The ferocious roar had locked his legs, and he turned to slow, to late as his brain processed the information.

Meizun had reacted faster than him however and she had pushed him away from the monster without hesitation, not even shouting a warning. Her eyes were locked onto his own even as the wolfman swung at her. His eyes burned the image of the wolfman's claws sinking into her heart, bringing her HP down from green to zero in a single slash..

If she could defend herself, if she could have reacted, no doubt the outcome would be better, but with that decisive blow and her open guard, her fate was sealed.

..

In those short but yet too long seconds that marked the end of Meizun's life, Katsuragi Keima found himself just frozen with shock.

He had failed, he had failed, he had failed to save her. There was no other way to explain the situation other than it was the most soul crushing moment of his entire life then. Even with the praises that others sung of him, all the things that he had claimed that he had done, he had been unable to protect those that were around him – that believed him.

It hurt, it hurt like nothing else in the world hurt and Keima's mind almost blanked out till he remembered what Meizun had said with her last breath.

..

The wikia administrator's last words – that she still believed in him made him move and start running from the monster that had taken her life. That she was happy he was safe. That was the reason he got away, for he had fled, and ran after all traces of the girl that he had acknowledged, had found amusing but at the same time to be maybe a friend, disappear from this world due to his mistake.

He couldn't get killed after she gave her life for him – not when she exchanged her life for his.

And that's why, right now, even when confronted by Argo who practically demanded his death, could Keima still manage a reply to her.

'I'm sorry.'

Keima answered softly to the surprise of Argo. Was he really apologizing? Or was it just an act to get her off his back? She didn't know any more and she wasn't certain till Keima followed that line with a small smile.

'I-I'm so, so sorry... p-please, forgive me...'

He was asking forgiveness, the Capturing God was asking forgiveness from another player, and that was enough to take Argo off his case even she looked unsure on what to do next.

..

Argo let him be, no, that wasn't quite right. Argo abandoned him. She gave up on him, that much was certain as Meizun's name was the only one left in his Friend List.

Argo had deleted him from hers, and Keima couldn't blame her for doing that. She was right in that it was his fault, that he had let her down and that there was nothing he could do to bring her back.

Keima had nothing to defend himself against Argo at all – it was his fault after all. From the get go, Argo had always seemed a little sceptical and wary of him, which was a very reasonable thing to do. Keima pegged the other female player as a shrewd player who was very worldly wise who was as nosy as heck. She kept trying to learn more about him and like himself – to place him with her own eyes and judgement. Perhaps it served as a way to come up with potential material to persuade him to help her out?
It wasn't like him to be so vindictive or judgement at the start, but Argo was definitely someone that Keima believed could go far in the death game. Her giving up on him after what he had done to her friend, to someone who was close to her. That much was very obvious from how shaken and angry she was at him.

Anyone would actually, and Keima found himself horribly detached as he spent his time going in circles in his mind.

He had to reflect, he had to think, he had to find a way out of this feeling of pain, suffering, despair, anger and self-loathing that he had caused himself to feel.

It hurt, it really hurt and it was not going to get better if he doesn't do something!

So what could he do? Keima asked himself that question endlessly as he got to his feet. He barely remembered where he was. He knew that the room's rental - where Argo had dragged him into was paid for by her and he would be kicked out of the place soon if he did not get out of the room. Argo would have the power to do so, and being kicked out in an undignified manner was not going to help his situation any better.

Even if he wasn't thinking right now, his mind was endlessly looping the image of Meizun dying in front of her. Only it was being twisted or distorted with each repetition, the first time it was her taking the blow for him like always. The second time was him being forced to watch in the view of the monster, of his startled look as he was pushed away and then him slashing Meizun with his claws. The next was from a third person view and so on. It was like what Argo was trying to do, his own mind trying to force him to remember every single detail.

It just tore him up even more as he staggered down the stairs, not even managing to even register or recognize the NPCs as well as the players who saw him en route to the inn that he had always preferred to rent a room n.

'Welcome back, Keima-san...?'

The innkeeper, Tracy greeted Keima with a smile but for once Keima did not return it. He had a haunted look that made the NPC Tracy hesitate. It was a great feat of 'evolution' that made an NPC able to sense or to recognize moods from a player, perhaps Tracy wasn't an NPC after all? It was a huge breakthrough and Keima would be all over it if not for him being just too out of it to contemplate the development.

He did file that thought away and promised himself that he would investigate that phenomenon at another date. Such was the way of the Capturing God.

'Keima-san? Are you alright?'

The NPC asked with a touch of worry but Keima ignored her and just headed to his room, closing the door softly behind him before locking it as an after thought.

He needed to be alone, no he wanted to be alone, to think through his thoughts and to find out what had gone wrong. No, he knew what had went wrong. He was the Capturing God, he knew everything and at the same time knew nothing

The question now was: What was he going to do about it? Was he going to make amends? How was he going to make amends, all of that needed to be thought through.

And he'll have to do it the only way he knew how – alone.

..

The next few days passed in a flash for Keima – the nightmarish days and nights was only made worse as every time he tried to sleep, the same sequence appeared in his dreams.

Of Meizun dying. It was always her, although there was one instance when instead of it being Meizun, it was Argo – and that was definitely the worst of the lot as far as Keima was concerned.

The spiteful and vindictive look that Argo gave her before she disappeared tore at him again, but ironically at the same time made him feel just a tad better.

If Meizun had just hated him for it, he might have gotten over it a little easier. Instead, Meizun had trusted and believed in him till the end. That kind of responsibility and weight on his shoulders, it wasn't the best thing to work with at all times.

But he was the Capturing God, that meant he had to live up to her expectations as much as she would, and nothing less would suffice.

So Katsuragi Keima, or Keima as he was known in SAO, stepped out of his room for the first time in several days.

..

Argo looked politely confused when she heard a knock on the door of the small house that she had rented outside of the beginning city. She had been burying herself in work for the past week due to what had happened to her, to her...sister as if she didn't do so, she would have gone insane.

After leaving that coward and pathetic excuse for a human behind, Argo had headed out to do what she did best – to gather information and to hit up on her usual contacts in SAO.

The beta-testers were always in the market for new quests, new buyers for their drops as well as in locating new potential team-mates to improve their skills out in the field.

It helped that her sister had build up quite a base of players who always wanted to party with her.

Of course the most painful part was telling them her sister has passed on, that Meizun, the strongest player had died. It was of cold comfort that the advise Argo had been able to give about the quest that Keima had taken was able to save several smaller squads from the same fate.

It was also worth mentioning that particular quests' reward was a prerequisite for other quests that would help the affluence level of the town – leading to the unlocking of higher level potions that would serve all of them well.

But besides from that debilitating pain that she felt whenever she had to give the news that her sister was dead, that she was convinced that she would never see her again and no, that it wasn't a lie.

Argo had broken down a few times when she had to deliver that news, but had rallied well after that to finish the conversation in the most professional manner possible.

Life went on in SAO, and if one meant that she had to watch more people jump down from Aincrad in a desperate to get free – than life went on normally.

It was like what all three of them had agreed on, there was only so much stress that one could take before something had to give. And the fact that they might really need to clear the game, to clear 100 floors of this monster infested world was not comforting.

The weaker willed individuals snapped first and had taken their lives, Argo found that incredibly cowardly and selfish of themselves to do that.

Yes, their lives were in their hands – but if their actions caused others to contemplate the same actions, then it wasn't fair, was it?

But there was nothing that Argo could do for those who choose to do that, nor could she do anything for those that considered it. Argo's priorities was to help those individuals who wanted to fight, who didn't want to die a meaningless death and to do something.

..

Incidentally it was also around that time when another fact about SAO was revealed. It hadn't been very well known that buildings and houses could be rented, only players with significant funds could afford that – but that everything and anything could possibly rented in SAO if one approached the mayor of each town.

That much was revealed when all the signboards of the beginning city and the other two towns had announcements listed on them one morning without anyone noticing.

The announcements were nothing spectacular on the first day, they only announced the newest version of the 'Field Guide to Aincrad' and that one could actually purchase it at any merchant shop in the city.

Argo was appreciative of the free publicity, there were still players who were not aware of what the guide could do to help them. With all the signboards around the city and the entrances of town showing that announcement, Argo wasn't that surprised when the sales from the guide almost tripled after that day.

It was a good thing, information was power after all and having such information on hand definitely helped soothed the nerves of some of the weaker players – which lead to a drop in suicide attempts immediately after that day.

Whoever thought of that plan to help the players cope was a genius, and earned the respect of Argo whose motto of information sharing matched up with hers.

It made some of the pain disappear when she knew that her and her sister's work was being acknowledged by the anonymous contributor to their cause. It still hurt, especially when the cause of death for Meizun was 'Killed by A Field Boss'.

It was a constant reminder on how unpredictable SAO could become, and Argo was considering making the phrase 'Unpredictability means Loss' as her official motto after what had befallen her sister.

The announcements on the town after first day included useful but trivial information like the amount of players left in the game, the affluence level of each town as well as the current expected weather of Aincrad.

It does rain in Aincrad after all, and it was during one those dreary rainy days that the knock came on her door.

..

Surprised, Argo called for her visitor to wait for her. It wasn't that she didn't have guests, but most of her clients would rather she meet them rather than the other way around. Then again, it could be a new client or a random player who had been caught in the growing storm.

What she did not expect, was for Keima to be at the door and for him to force his way in despite Argo's attempt to slam the door at his face.

'What are you doing here!'

She hissed angrily while fighting the urge to end his life here right now without hesitation. How dare he had the cheek to come and waltzed in like he did nothing!

'I, I can't offer you my life for her. Because... she, gave it for me... and because of that, my life, is her life... And I won't let it go that easily.'

Keima's words made Argo pause and the grip on her dagger weakened slightly when Keima lowered his eyes before requesting a friend request to Argo.

'I'll take responsibility for taking your sister's life.'

Author's Notes Thank you for your support so far! Did i reply all of your reviews? If I didn't, please forgive me!