Another chapter incoming! This one is short and sweet. Well, it's more of an interlude or mini-chapter really. I didn't want to leave off on a depressing note, so this one is more lighthearted. Oh, and this is the second chapter I've posted today, so make sure you've read the previous one!

Chapter 11: Whiskers

This time when the wireframes formed around me, I found myself standing in a secluded area with a gigantic rock. Kirito was punching it. Wasn't this that quest I'd heard about somewhere? The one that gave the Martial Arts skill?

"Ah, I see I have another potential student!" An elderly voice came from behind me, causing me to jump. "Young man, would you like to learn a martial art?"

So easy? No long spiel to listen to? Great! I accepted the quest despite the niggling at the back of my mind telling me it was a bad idea. Kirito was doing it, right? He knew what he was doing.

Then the old man turned around and produced a paintbrush, and I remembered what the niggling was trying to tell me: once you accepted the quest, the old man would paint whiskers on your face. There was no way to remove them until you completed the quest.

Oh my god, I was going to be stuck with whiskers until I broke that godforsaken rock with my bare hands.

I tried to dodge the brush, but the old man was surprisingly nimble. "These are—" he managed to pain the first line on my cheek, "—the marks—" and another two lines, "—of the student!" To my despair, he completed the set on the other side. "Wear them proudly."

I glared at the NPC, but it was too late. Rubbing my face made no difference; the whiskers didn't even smear.

Kirito turned around, his face lighting up at the sight of me. "Kyou! You're alive!" Then he stopped and snickered. "Nice whiskers, man."

"Yeah yeah, you too," I grumbled. At least I wasn't alone in this. "Any tricks I should know about before I get started?" I took of my gloves and let them vanish into my inventory. No need to damage them by slamming them into a rock repeatedly.

Kirito shook his head. "I asked Argo, but she said there was no trick. You just have to hit the rock really hard." He sighed. "I've been at this since this morning."

"Ick." I approached a second rock not too far from Kirito's. "Here goes!"

I threw a punch at the rock with as much force as I could muster, only it never hit. Well, it never hit the rock anyway.

"Ow, shit!" I cradled my hand, which was now blazing with pain. Next to me, there was a hole in the wall where my fist had gone through it. Yep, the wall. I'd punched the wall next to my bed so hard I woke myself up. It wasn't the first time I'd put a hole in my wall, (in fact the last one still needed to be patched) but it was the first time it'd happened from a punch. Last time I'd punched the wall in my sleep, it hurt like a bitch but hadn't even left a mark.

"Dammit!" Kyou, and who knows, maybe even Nanako, was going to be stuck with whiskers forever! And now my room was going to smell even more like drywall, or insulation, or whatever the hell that smell was.

Well, there was no way I was going back to sleep with that rush of adrenaline. Sighing, I got up to get some ice.

A/N: If you've read Playing by Ear you already know this, but a few months ago I kicked a hole in my wall in my sleep. I didn't even wake up from it, which was the weird part. I still haven't fixed it.